Millennium Development Goals / ONE, Bono and Bob Geldof in New York

 

 

Millennium Development Goals / ONE, Bono and Bob Geldof in New York

 

NEW YORK, USA, September 22, 2008/African Press Organization (APO)/ — ONE, Bono and Bob Geldof in New York to pressure world leaders in fight against disease, hunger and extreme poverty – and with other anti-poverty activists call for the need to innovate and accelerate progress.

Week starts with meeting French President Sarkozy and EU President Barroso, and support for African leaders’ plan to get the continent back on track for the Millennium Development Goals.

Eight years on from the 2000 UN Summit – the largest meeting of world leaders where eight goals were agreed to inject momentum into the fight against poverty, we stand at a crossroads: while there has been some remarkable progress, the current global challenges don’t just threaten the ability to achieve these goals but also raise the potential spectre of a reversal of progress made to date. 

A series of meetings in New York this week, culminating in an anti-poverty summit on September 25^th attended by over 90 heads of state and representatives from the private sector and NGOs alike, will draw a clear line in the sand – does the world stand by these commitments at a time when they are even more necessary?

ONE is calling on world leaders to work together with diverse actors, in new ways, to build on successes and finish the job they have started, arguing that if development commitments are not addressed poverty, hunger and conflict may further exacerbate global financial and economic instability.

“Half way to 2015, it is time to celebrate the progress that has been made against poverty, and to develop innovative new partnerships to build on this success. We will be pushing world leaders to build on success despite tough economic times as well as innovate against extreme poverty.” said Jamie Drummond, Executive Director of ONE.

• This afternoon in New York, ONE representatives meet President Sarkozy to push on the French aid budget, which will be announced later this week.  ONE will also be meeting EU President Barroso  pushing the need for the EU to reallocate 1 billion Euros in European agricultural subsidies towards helping up to 30 developing countries fight hunger and invest in urgently needed agricultural development. The African Uunion is also launching a plan today to get Africa back on track for the Millennium Development Goals.
  
• On Wednesday 24th September Bono will attend the opening panel of the Clinton Global Initiative, and ONE is co-hosting an event to celebrate and accelerate progress on the Millennium Development Goals with the UN Secretary-General and other anti-poverty organizations.
  
• On Thursday 25th September, ONE representatives will be in a series of meetings, including the launch of the Irish Hunger Task force, the UN Roundtable on Health and Education, the launch of In My Name (a new effort to support southern activists), the “Malaria No More” summit to eradicate malaria deaths by 2015 and the “Class of 2015” Education for All event later in the afternoon on Thursday.
  
• Throughout the week ONE, Bono and Geldof will be meeting with government leaders and activists and private sector supporters of the fight against extreme poverty.
  
• Bono will be blogging for FT.com throughout the week about his and ONE’s activities 
  

Successes to celebrate and accelerate:

Malaria: There has been great progress in pilot districts where the disease is endemic in Rwanda Ethiopia, Tanzania and Zambia, demonstrable models to be scaled up to save the lives of the 2,400 who still die from malaria every day, mainly children in Africa. The Global Fund alone has distributed 59m insecticide treated malaria bed-nets worldwide. It is estimated 250m are needed to cover Africa effectively, as well as more widespread use of insecticides and therapies for treatment for malaria. An historic plan to aggressively innovate and accelerate this success against malaria, bringing in new donors and new partnerships and increased financing, will be presented on Thursday Sept 25^th.

Education:  There has been great progress since 1999 with 29m more children in school in Africa, 41m more globally. This tremendous progress will be built upon through a special side summit on education on Thursday September 25^th. This meeting will call for immediate financing of all the “education for all” plans which are currently underfunded.

HIV/AIDS:  In 2002 only 50,000 African people living with HIV/AIDS were on lifesaving medications; today 2.1m Africans are on treatment and nearly 3m globally. However, 4.9m more African people and 1.8m more globally still need these medicines – and every day 6,800 people are infected with HIV/AIDS around the world.

Child mortality:  The number of children dying from preventable, treatable illnesses has reduced from 12.7m to 9.2m per year since 1990 – nearly 10,000 fewer children dying every day – but still 25,000 are dying daily.

In other areas progress has been underwhelming and ONE is demanding urgent action:

Maternal mortality: Over half a million women still die each year from treatable and preventable complications of pregnancy and childbirth.  The maternal mortality rate is not declining and will be the subject of much attention and creative energy in New York, led by the White Ribbon Alliance. We trust there will be a series of new announcements investing in healthcare workers and health systems to help fight maternal mortality

 
 

Hunger: In the last year the number of people going hungry increased from 848m to 923m globally, brought on by a 50% increase in food prices in many of the poorest countries. Meanwhile about 30 countries have emergency needs of around $1billion for investment in seeds, fertilizers and food to fight hunger and kick-start agricultural development. This immediate gap could be more than filled by the reallocation of some unspent European agricultural subsidy funds – a proposal which must be fully adopted n Brussels and by European leaders.

 

 

SOURCE : DATA (Debt AIDS Trade Africa)