Millennium Development Goals

The Millenium Development Goals were adopted by over 150 Heads of State at the U.N. Millennium Summit in September 2000 and include halving the proportion of people living in poverty and hunger by 2015, ensuring primary schooling for all children, and reversing the spread of HIV/AIDS, malaria and other major diseases.

Did you know that by 2015 all 191 member states of the United Nations have pledged to:

1. Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger by reducing by half the proportion of people living on less than a dollar a day and reducing by half the proportion of people who suffer from hunger.
2. Achieve universal primary education by ensuring that all boys and girls complete a full course of primary schooling.
3. Promote gender equality and empower women by eliminating gender disparity in primary and secondary education preferably by 2005, and at all levels by 2015.
4. Reduce child mortality by reducing by two thirds the mortality rate among children under five.
5. Improve maternal heath by reducing by three quarters the maternal mortality ratio.
6. Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases by halting and begining to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS.
7. Ensure environmental sustainability by integrating the principles of sustainable development into country policies and programs, reversing loss of environmental resources, reducing by half the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water, and achieving significant improvements in lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers by 2020.
8. Develop a global partnership for development.

These invaluable objectives are called the Millennium Development Goals, and, though they might seem quite ambitions, the world is financially and structurally capable of achieving them. All the citizens of the world must encourage their governments to place their full force behind this agenda.

As the world's superpower, the United States does not struggle as much as some countries with extreme poverty or infant mortality or safe drinking water-although these problems certainly still exist in the U.S. The most important role the U.S. can play in the achievement of these Millennium Development Goals is to support goal #8 by being a good global partner. Some of the steps the U.S. agreed to take included addressing the least developed countries' special needs with tariff- and quota-free access for their exports, dealing comprehensively with developing countries' debt problems, providing access to affordable essential drugs in developing countries, and making available the benefits of new information and communications technologies to developing countries.

As concerned and supportive citizens, we should call our congressional representatives and ask them what their stance is on the Millennium Development Goals. We must write the White House to keep our government accountable for the promises it made.

Learn more about the Millennium Development Goals and their implementation. Learn more about the One Campaign which works to build political will in the United States to achieve the Millennium Development Goals.

One voice at a time, we must convince our government that Americans believe in and support the Millennium Development Goals. If we are silent, how will our government know that we want them to be working for a more just and promising future?

Note: Goals quoted from the UN Department of Public Information materials.

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Sojourners has initiated The 30,000 Campaign to support the MDGs effort to overcome poverty.

The White Band Campaign has been active around the world to raise awareness of the MDGs with a particular emphasis on poverty issues. Put a white bow (or something else white) on the church door, pulpit, or other location. Include an explanation in the bulletin.

Incorporate one of the concerns raised by the MDGs into prayer each week for eight weeks. Encourage church members to keep issues related to that goal in prayer throughout the week.

Invite congregants to write to their Senators, the President, the State Department and the U.S. Mission to the U.N. asking that the U.S. fully support the Millennium Development Goals.

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