Introduction The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) concern us

							Introduction
The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)
concern us all. For young people their
achievement is even more crucial as we will
have to deal with the consequences of not
taking action today. Young people make up a
disproportionately large part of populations
living in poverty so reaching the goals is of the
utmost importance to millions of youth - not
just in the future, but also today.

This brochure will give you some background
information on the importance of the MDGs.
Foremost, however, it is, a call for action from
individuals and organisations:the MDGs will only
be reached if there is enough pressure on policy
makers to follow up on their promises and on
individuals and organisations to take action.



The Goals
1. Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
   •   Reduce by half the proportion of people living on
       less than a dollar a day.
   •   Reduce by half the proportion of people who
       suffer from hunger.
2. Achieve universal primary education
   •   Ensure that all boys and girls complete a full
       course of primary schooling.
3. Promote gender equality and empower women
   •   Eliminate gender disparity in primary and
       secondary education preferably by 2005, and at
       all levels by 2015.
4. Reduce child mortality
   •   Reduce by two thirds the mortality rate among
       children under five.
5. Improve maternal health
   •   Reduce by three quarters the maternal mortality
       ratio.
6. Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases
   •   Halt and begin to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS.
   •   Halt and begin to reverse the incidence of
       malaria and other major diseases.
7. Ensure environmental sustainability
   •   Integrate    the     principles   of     sustainable
       development      into    country     policies    and
       programmes; reverse loss of environmental
       resources.
   •   Reduce by half the proportion of people without
       sustainable access to safe drinking water.
   •   Achieve significant improvement in lives of at
       least 100 million slum dwellers, by 2020.
8. Develop a global partnership for development
   •   Develop further an open trading and financial
       system that is rule-based, predictable and non-
       discriminatory. Includes a commitment to good
       governance, development and poverty reduction—
       nationally and internationally.
   •   Address the least developed countries’ special
       needs. This includes tariff- and quota-free access
       for their exports; enhanced debt relief for heavily
       indebted poor countries; cancellation of official
       bilateral debt; and more generous official
       development assistance for countries committed
       to poverty reduction.
   •   Address the special needs of landlocked and small
       island developing States.
   •   Deal comprehensively with developing countries'
       debt problems through national and international
       measures to make debt sustainable in the long
       term.
   •   In cooperation with the developing countries,
       develop decent and productive work for youth.
   •   In cooperation with pharmaceutical companies,
       provide access to affordable essential drugs in
       developing countries.
   •   In cooperation with the private sector, make
       available the benefits of new technologies—
       especially information and communications
       technologies.

Getting the Ball Rolling
These are the eight goals and 18 targets that
were agreed upon in 2000 by 147 World
Leaders. Over 189 countries have committed
themselves to the Millennium Development
Goals and the commitment was reaffirmed in
the Millennium Review Summit in September
2005.

What are the Goals?
The MDGs are a set of people-orientated, time
bound, and measurable goals which join
together efforts to meet the needs of the
world’s poorest. Covering a broad range of
areas and with a target of the year 2015 for
their achievement, they are the strongest goals
to date aimed at achieving greater peace,
security, development, human rights and
fundamental freedoms.

Young People in the Goals
Although encompassing a large set of issues, it
is noteworthy that the MDGs fail to fully
incorporate the youth aspect onto their agenda.
This is regrettable considering that many of the
goals developed have a direct link to young
people. For example, it is often young mothers
in poverty who suffer from bad health
conditions; in countries with high HIV
prevalence rates, young people and especially
young women are at particular risk of
contracting the virus as soon as they become
sexually active. Thus, even if many of the goals
relate directly to young people, they are still
not dealt with explicitly and are in fact rarely
mentioned.

Linking young people to the goals
One month after the Millennium Review Summit
(September 2005), the ten year evaluation of
the World Programme of Action for Youth
(WPAY) in the UN General Assembly took place .
This should have proved ample opportunity to
make a linkage between the MDGs and WPAY;
but unfortunately, this opportunity was not
seized and the fact remains that young people
are still not given an explicit focus in the MDGs.

Why is it important to Youth?
Of the 1.2 billion young people in the world
today, over 500 million live in poverty and over
200 million are living in extreme poverty; 130
million are illiterate; 88 million are
unemployed; and 10 million are living with
HIV/AIDS. Indeed, in exploring ways to deal
with such issues, the compatibility of the MDGs
and the WPAY is clear: young people should be
recognised as an ‘untapped resource for
development and peace’, and as having a
crucial role to play in achieving the MDGs!

What can you do?
Youth organisations all over the world are
already working on the implementation of the
MDGs. They are running development projects,
doing advocacy work, as well as raising
awareness on the Goals.
There are plenty of activities your organisation
could undertake to contribute to the
achievement of the Goals. It could be
everything from a small action taking 5 minutes
of your time, to running a larger project
together with other persons and organisations.

Examples:
   Gather a few organisations to write a
   common report or statement and use it to
   get media attention. This could also be used
   to organise a hearing with parliamentarians
   or to petition ministers on specific issues
   related to the MDGs.
   Produce promotional materials, or convene
   meetings in partnership with other
   organisations,to help pressure for change.
   Get attention from both policy-makers and
   the media by organising demonstrations or
   rallies. For example you could rally in front
   of a Government Ministry or Parliament
   building, wrapping yourself in a white-band
   or distributing reminder cards noting how
   many days are left till 2015, and asking
   what those in power will do today to
   achieve the MDGs; and also if they have
   thought about linking them to the WPAY.
   An easy way to show policy-makers that
   people care about the issues involved and to
   raise awareness is simply to call or write to
   ask them what they are doing to fulfill the
   MDGs. If you have a little bit more time, you
   could form a group to do this regularly and
   see if different organisations could work
   together, for example, by organising an e-
   mail campaign.
   There are many other ways of raising
   awareness about the MDGs: from designing
   training courses about them; to writing
   articles; going to schools to talk about
   them; or simply talking to your friends
   about the issues.
   Don’t forget to check what campaigns are
   already underway! Often you and your
   organisation could join an existing
   campaign.
   Last but not least, you could work for the
   achievement of the MDGs by running your
   own projects to contribute to the goals. You
   could, for example, check what funding
   possibilities are available in your country,
   try to find partners in other countries and
   run projects together.

What Issues Can You Raise?
The Millennium Development Goals cover a
large number of issues. Exactly what you want
to focus on is up to you. As we have seen, one
issue that has not been overly emphasised is the
youth aspect, and you could easily raise this
with your government by asking them how
youth has been dealt with in their national
MDG-plan. For ‘developed countries’, the
achievement of Goal 8 - for a global partnership
- is perhaps the most important. For
‘developing countries’, one could focus more on
the achievement of Goals 1-7.
Conclusions
Agreeing on something is not always enough.
Actions are also needed and they don’t happen
by themselves. Pressure is needed to show that
these issues are of interest to many people and
to raise awareness. No one can achieve the
MDGs by themselves, but if all contribute a bit,
then we can get a lot closer.

More information and contacts
The UN Millennium Campaign has over 50
national campaigns on the MDGs. At their
website (www.millenniumcampaign.org), there
are a lot of resources on progress towards the
Goals in different countries; and campaigns
promoting the MDGs, etc. You could, for
example, check out what youth events are
happening                                   at
www.millenniumcampaign.org/youthcalendar.

Another ongoing campaign is the Global Call to
Action Against Poverty. Check out what is
happening     in     your      country      at
www.whiteband.org.

You could also check the progress of MDGs in
your country at
http://www.undg.org
http://www.undp.org/mdg/countryreports.htm
l
http://www.undp.org/mdg/trackingprogress.ht
ml

For further information on youth and issues
related   to   MDGs    you   can  go    the
www.un.org/youth, where you will also find the
World Youth Reports.