ONE: Obama, World Leaders Must Turn Words into Action

Washington, DC – U.S. ONE Executive Director Sheila Nix released the following statement regarding the contents of a draft UN accord to be adopted at the Millennium Development Goals summit this month:

“It’s deeply reassuring that, despite the global economy’s tough turn, world leaders have reaffirmed the central importance of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). These goals have fostered unprecedented progress, with millions more alive today, and in jobs today, because of this decade-long partnership.  But progress hasn’t been fast enough and there have been adverse shocks. The question is, do we have the strategy here to not just build upon but both accelerate and strengthen progress?

“This text makes many good noises and presses important buttons but morale boosting warm words alone won’t deliver the Millennium Goals. Key tests now are: will the international community fully finance effective tools like the Global Fund to fight HIV/AIDs, TB and malaria?  Will they deliver on their agriculture pledges to combat growing global hunger through increased food production?  How will developing country governments contribute toward these two critical areas?   What specific steps will we take to  promote investment, trade and aid quality as well as fight corruption and put accountable, transparent governance where it must be – at the heart of the millennium goals strategy?

“Bringing together new partnerships from the private sector, emerging economies, civil society and traditional donors is essential to progress and requires a new mutual accountability compact, where citizens around the world can clearly monitor whether commitments are being kept, and whereby all partners can hold each other more accountable for delivery. We will all hold President Obama and other world leaders accountable for turning their warm words into the only thing that really matters:  action.”