ONE Spotlights Mid-point Progress on MDGs

Washington, DC – ONE: The Campaign to Make Poverty History highlighted both areas of accomplishment and deficiency included in the recently released UN Millennium Development Goals 2007 Report. The report tracks the progress the developing countries and their development partners are making in meeting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by the year 2015. The 2007 report marks the midpoint in measuring progress toward achieving these goals.

“The UN MDG Report shows that we are marking progress in our quest to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, however we must step up our pace in order to achieve them by 2015,” Kimberly Cadena, ONE Campaign spokesperson, said. “As it stands now, only North Africa, of the eight regional groups, is on target to achieve all of the MDGs by 2015. The biggest obstacles for the seven other regional groups are lack of employment opportunities for the youngest members of the workforce, gender inequalities, the increasing scarcity of clean water and the high prevalence of HIV.”

Cadena continued, “Significant progress has been made in some areas, including toward the goal of halving extreme poverty by 2015. The proportion of people worldwide living on the equivalent of a dollar a day has fallen from 32 percent to 19 percent, meaning 270 million people are no longer living in the worst conditions. If the trend continues, the MDG poverty reduction goal will be met.”

“In order to reach the MDG goals by 2015, the next President of the United States must make this important, lifesaving work a high priority of his or her foreign policy. ONE Vote ’08 is ONE’s initiative to engage the presidential candidates on issues of extreme poverty and global disease, bringing to their attention the importance of making costed, proven solutions to these problems part of their foreign policy platform. Making them a priority is not only a matter of doing the right thing and helping those that need our assistance the most; it is also a matter of national security. America’s work to provide medicines, basic education and other crucial assistance in the world’s poorest countries builds goodwill for our nation and increases those we are able to count among America’s friends around the world,” Cadena concluded.

We’ve come a long way:

• Fewer people are living in extreme poverty. The amount of people living on the equivalent of less than a dollar a day dropped from 32% (1.25 billion in 1990) to 19% (980 million in 2004). If this trend continues, we will meet the MDG poverty reduction target by 2015.
• More children are receiving an education. Enrollment in primary education in developing countries increased from 80% in 1991 to 88% in 2005.
• Gender disparities are on the decline. Although progress has been slow overall, women have been holding seats in government that were previously only held by men.
• Fewer children are dying from easily treatable diseases, which proves that affordable and effective treatment interventions can reduce the number of deaths      caused by childhood threats such as the measles.

We have a long way to go:

• Over 500,000 women still die each year from complications in pregnancy and childbirth. In Sub-Saharan Africa, 1 in 16 women will die from these complications compared to 1 in 3,800 in the developed world.
• The number of people who died from AIDS in 2006 increased to 2.9 million and more than 15 million children have lost one or both parents to the disease. Treatment programs are having a hard time keeping up with the growth of the AIDS epidemic.
• Half of the population in the developing world lacks basic sanitation and the target goal is set to be missed by 600 million people. In order to get back on track, an additional 1.6 billion people will need to be provided with improved basic sanitation.
• Most developing economies have failed to create employment opportunities for young people and have increased the income gap between the rich and poor.