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1.8 Billion Strong: Young People Driving the MDGs

Last week, UNFPA (the United Nations Population Fund), IPPF (International Planned Parenthood Federation) and the Inter-Agency Network for Youth Development held an insightful panel discussion outlining the importance of involving young people and especially young women in the orchestration and implementation of the MDGs.

The case for investing in young people has never been stronger: statistics show that youth make up 30% of the average national population and up to 50% in some countries. Evidence has shown national poverty levels can be reduced by devoting time, money, education, health provisions and resources to young people. Making the voices and well-being of women and young people a priority not only makes economic sense; it also helps to ensure the sustainability of the development effort.

The event highlighted the topic of reproductive health and the benefits of educating and empowering young people, especially girls, about their sexual and reproductive choices. Currently 11% of births worldwide are by girls of the age between 15-19, many of whom who have only had the opportunity of limited education. Horrifyingly, every 14 seconds a young person becomes HIV positive and every year 3 million girls are subjected to female genital mutilation, with many suffering adverse consequences long after.

By improving education services and tackling negative social attitudes, many of these statistics could be greatly reduced. It has already been well documented that the better educated a mother is, the greater chance her children have not only of surviving but of leading a better and more healthy life.

The panelists, who included UNFPA Executive Director Thoraya Obaid and Gill Greer; Director General of the IPPF, called on the international community to stop ignoring the 1.8 billion young who are the makers of tomorrow and to involve them in MDG discussions. This would help to ensure that legislation and provisions for the youth are not based on ideology or assumptions, but on evidence and reality.

Indigenous Women: 'No More Promises, a Call for Action' at UN MDG Summit

The International Indigenous Women's Forum (known by its Spanish acronym FIMI, Foro Internacional de Mujeres Indígenas), a longtime MADRE partner, headed to the UN last week to take part in the international discussions concerning the MDGs.

FIMI advanced a position that states must make a greater commitment to ensuring the rights and protection of women and Indigenous Peoples across the globe. While the MDGs have seen some success, millions of people are still deprived of basic rights and resources which can help them to lead a better and healthier life.

Indigenous Peoples are often disproportionately represented amongst the poor. They are denied the ability to determine their own patterns of sustainable consumption and production, and their poverty is not merely about income and material wealth. Access to and control over natural resources, as well as traditional knowledge, contribute significantly to healthy livelihoods. Recognition of these needs, along with the understanding that poverty is a function of human rights violations, are vital.

In their statement, FIMI called upon states to promote and encourage; "...the full and effective participation of indigenous people's" as well as a greater role for women in the design, implementation and monitoring of MDG-related programmes and policies. These are all measures which will dramatically improve the chances of achieving the MDG's.

Importantly, FIMI also drew attention to the impact climate change and environmental degradation has on Indigenous communities and demanded that states recognize that fighting climate change does not only protect their way of life but also helps to fight poverty.

Read more from FIMI's statement here.

A Closer Look at the MDGs: Develop a Global Partnership for Development

We've reached the eighth and final Millennium Development Goal! MDG 8 recognizes the need to Develop a Global Partnership for Development.

The targets MDG 8 outlines deal primarily with finances, trade, and partnerships with large-scale corporations and the private sector. Instead this approach to global partnership, MADRE and our sister organizations have long worked together towards common goals with a focus on grassroots partnerships. MADRE's mission has always been to work hand-in-hand with community-based groups around the world to create meaningful and necessary change. MADRE continues to work toward building global partnership, with local projects in places like Afghanistan, Bolivia, Colombia, Guatemala, Haiti, Iraq, Kenya, Nicaragua, Palestine, Panama, Peru, and Sudan. On an international level, MADRE also partners with the International Indigenous Women's Forum (also known by its Spanish acronym FIMI) to increase the role of Indigenous women in decision-making positions, leadership, and advocacy.

With established local and international connections, we know that our model of partnership works.  This week, as we've been following the discussion on the MDGs and posting information on our programs, this has been very clear to us.  Any hope we have of achieving the MDGs will depend on the participation of community-based leaders, who have struggled against hunger, poverty, illness and discrimination and who have created local solutions.

For more on MADRE's mission and partnerships, visit our website at www.madre.org. To support MADRE and, in turn, our efforts to advance the Millennium Development Goals, click here.

A Closer Look at the MDGs: The Missing Target

After an in-depth look at the eight UN Millennium Development Goals, one key target is noticeably absent: Violence Against Women. The Millennium Development Goals fail to address violence against women as a target, even where discussion about this issue would be most salient (Promote Gender Equality and Empower Women, Improve Maternal Health, and Combat HIV/AIDS).

MADRE, along with a multitude of other women's groups, have criticized the MDGs and the United Nations for neglecting this extremely critical issue (for MADRE's critique of the MDGs, click here.) As many as three-quarters of women and girls around the world experience physical or sexual violence in their lifetime. This in turn affects their ability to contribute fully to the improvement of their own lives, the lives of those around them, and the communities in which they live. Without acknowledging the "missing target" of Violence Against Women, the UN's chance of accomplishing the eight MDGs is severely diminished.

UNIFEM released a video about this "missing target" and the recent increase in gender-based violence in Haiti following the January 12th earthquake. MADRE has been working extensively with our sister organization in Haiti, KOFAVIV, to address the epidemic of violence against women since the earthquake. Watch UNIFEM's video below:

Quick Post: Five Years Left - MADRE Talking Points on the Millennium Development Goals

*Reposted from the MADRE website.

In 2000, world leaders representing all 191 countries that belong to the United Nations pledged to achieve eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015.  These goals aimed at tackling some of the most pressing threats of our time – gender discrimination, poverty, hunger, maternal mortality, and more – have since become the main framework for development policy worldwide.

They have even been adopted by many of the international agencies and banks that control the budgets of most poor countries, and they have been reflected in the budgeting priorities of the UN.  Ultimately, the MDGs create opportunities for advancing women’s human rights, but only if we are able to participate effectively in the process of realizing the goals.

On September 20-22, the UN General Assembly has convened a high level plenary meeting to address progress towards achieving the MDGs, with five years remaining before the 2015 deadline.  The clock is ticking, not only for those governments responsible for making the MDGs real in their own countries, but for the billions of people every day denied the right to food, health, education and more.  As the UN strategizes a way forward, MADRE calls for an approach that is rooted in human rights and committed to ending gender discrimination.

 

What Do the Millennium Development Goals Mean for Women?

A Closer Look at the MDGs: Ensure Environmental Sustainability

We're almost done with our week-long examination of the United Nations' eight Millennium Development Goals! MDG 7 seeks to Ensure Environmental Sustainability. Its targets are:

• integrate the principles of sustainable development into country policies and programs and reverse the loss of environmental resources;
• reduce biodiversity loss, achieving, by 2010, a significant reduction in the rate of loss;
• halve, by 2015, the proportion of the population without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation; and
• achieve, by 2020, a significant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers.

Here, again, the United Nations has the opportunity to place women at the center as key actors in the world's agricultural economy.

From Our Sister Organizations: Daughters of the Stars (Panama)

In Panama, as a result of the environmental degradation of their rainforest, 95% of Panama's Indigenous groups live in poverty. The women that are responsible for providing their families with food and medicine are hard-hit by the destruction of the rainforest. Through our program, Defending People and Planet, MADRE supports community workshops that enable Indigenous women to recover Indigenous knowledge of biodiversity and secure agricultural seeds in danger of extinction. These women are also being trained in eco-tourism, providing them with income without risking further environmental degradation. Consequentially, poverty is eased while environmental destruction is reduced. Women are working to protect their environment, conserve biodiversity, and fight for their rights. As fundamental participants in the agricultural sector, women can also be the solution to ensuring environmental sustainability.

For more on climate change and environmental degradation, and its disproportionate impact on women, watch UNIFEM's video about the Colombian Wayuu people:

 

Quick Post: Obama Speaks at the UN General Assembly

Earlier today, US President Obama spoke at the opening of UN General Assembly, addressing a wide range issues from global economic crisis to the war in Iraq.  A video of his speech, provided by the UN Webcast, is posted below:

You can also view a video of a speech he delivered yesterday on the MDGs by clicking here.

A Closer Look at the MDGs: Combat HIV/AIDS, Malaria and Other Diseases

This week, MADRE has been taking a closer look at each Millennium Development Goal in response to the United Nations Summit being held in New York City to discuss the progress of the eight goals. MDG 6 strives to Combat HIV/AIDS, Malaria and Other Diseases. Its targets are:

• to halt and begin to reverse, by 2015, the spread of HIV/AIDS;
• to achieve, by 2010, universal access to treatment for HIV/AIDS for all those who need it; and
• to halt, and begin to reverse, by 2015, the incidence of malaria and other major diseases.

Like the other goals, MDG 6 is another goal that MADRE and our sister organizations have focused on, considering that women are often more at risk for contracting disease and suffering the fatal consequences of the disease due to the deeply embedded structural violence and discrimination women experience around the world. Unfortunately, the MDGs fail to recognize the centrality of eradicating violence against women and ensuring sexual and reproductive rights in combating these diseases, in particular HIV/AIDS.

While the United Nations has documented a decline in new cases of HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis, they are still far from achieving the targets outlined for 2010 and 2015.

From Our Sister Organizations: Barcenas Women Workers' Committee (Guatemala)

MADRE's program in Guatemala, the Barcenas Health and Dignity Project, is focused on providing Guatemalan women living in the outskirts of Guatemala City with access to basic health care, security, and reproductive health services. Guatemala is facing an epidemic of gender-based violence; in the past decade, 4,000 women and girls have been murdered, many raped and mutilated. The women of Barcenas are faced with violence in the workplace, on the streets, and at home. In response, MADRE and our sister organization, the Barcenas Women Workers' Committee, have set up safe spaces, taught basic safety precuations, and set up health fairs where women receive reproductive health services, Pap smears, vaccinations, and information on health, nutrition, and preventive health care.

As a result, women in Barcenas are able to regain control over their safety and their health after decades of violence and femicide. With a lessened chance of violence and an increased access to health care, the incidence of HIV/AIDS and other diseases is reduced, contributing, therefore, to the aim of MDG 6.

For more information on MDG 6:

In their video on MDG 6 and Botswana, UNIFEM highlights the unique obstacles women and risks women face to securing services for HIV/AIDS:

 

Quick Post: Putting Women at the Center

Here at the Digital Media Lounge, I was just handed a folder with information about the new initiative that UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon will be speaking on this afternoon: to invest over $40 billion in women and children's health and to save 16 million lives.  On one of the sheets in the folder, a quote by Thoraya Obaid, the Executive Director of the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) caught my eye:

"Women deliver for their families, communities and nations.  Now it is time to deliver for women!  Advancing the health and rights of women is one of the greatest social causes of our time.  To improve women's health and achieve the health related MDGs, we need to address inequities, engage communities and scale up reproductive health services."

The folder also contains information on government bodies, international agencies and businesses in the private sector that are designated as investors in this efforts.  But for this effort to be successful, it must draw from the incredible work that local community-based women's groups are already doing to promote women and children's health worldwide.  The possibility of real change for the health and well-being of women and children demands a dramatic increase of resources, but these must be connected with local networks of women who can most effectively deliver to their communities.

I look forward to hearing the Secretary-General's speech this afternoon -- you can follow the conversation about this on Twitter.

Watch Video from the Digital Media Lounge on the Millennium Development Goals

Watch live streaming video from mashable at livestream.com