Suddenly the world’s media, which has been studiously ignoring the Millennium Development Goals to this point, has caught MDG fever, just in time for today’s activities in New York City, in which the Episcopal Church will play a major role.
While Bono’s blog for the Financial Times, (which is actually quite informative) and articles about Bono’s blog for the Financial Times are generating some of the coverage, mainstream media outlets from around the world are weighing in on the political and economic nuts and bolts of the campaign to halve extreme poverty by 2015.
To wit:
Neil MacFarquhar of The New York Times explains why world leaders feel the U. S. financial meltdown may cripple the whole effort:
Wall Street and the Bush administration’s record of financial oversight came under attack at the United Nations, with one world leader after another saying that market turmoil in the United States threatened the global economy.
“We must not allow the burden of the boundless greed of a few to be shouldered by all,” President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil said in an opening speech Tuesday that reflected the tone of the gathering.
The Guardian has an excellent special section All Out on Poverty and an astute column by Leo Hickman which begins:
“We must do more – and we must do it now.” This urgent call for action is being aired loudly in both New York and Washington DC this week. On Capitol Hill, Congress is being urged to accept Henry Paulson’s $700bn bail-out for Wall Street’s beleaguered banks, whereas just over 200 miles up Interstate 95 at the UN headquarters in Turtle Bay big wigs from around the world are pondering how the millennium development goals – this week marks the halfway point towards their 2015 target – are ever going to be met given the woeful progress to date.
It’s at times like this where you really get to see the naked truth about where our worldly priorities lie. And it’s pretty hard not to think about what $700bn would buy you if you were pushing the trolley around the Truly Worthy Causes supermarket.
Causes don’t come much more worthy than the eight millennium development goals, which together form a panoply of unquestionably important aims: eradicate extreme poverty and hunger; achieve universal primary education; promote gender equality and empower women; reduce child mortality; improve maternal health; combat HIV/Aids, malaria and other diseases; ensure environmental sustainability; and develop a global partnership for development. But as today’s special Guardian supplement All Out On Poverty illustrates, we have a long, long way to go if we’re ever to meet most of these goals, let alone by 2015 which seems as absurdly optimistic a deadline now as it did back in 2000 when it was first announced. In fact, with some goals we have arguably slipped into reverse gear rather than advance towards them.
For a brief overview of what the UN will be discussing this week, this AFP story isn’t bad. The Age of Australia has a good overview of the entire MDG effort. Meanwhile, Washington Post has a helpful story about the contributions of Bill Gates and Howard and Warren Buffett in response to the world food crisis.
There are additional stories from Bangladesh, Nigeria, an editorial from Business Daily Africa (Kenya), a pessimistic appraisal of where the campaign stands from World Vision, India, and a personal vantage point provided by Queen Rania of Jordan on Slate.
So, I’m in NY this week wearing a couple of hats, shining a spotlight on the Millennium Development Goals and talking about the need for more sustainable development that will not only safeguard the environment, but also provide opportunity for the disenfranchised in society. It’s something we’re very interested in, in the Arab world.
I was invited to speak at Condé Nast’s World Savers Awards conference amid the awesome and inspiring architecture of Gotham Hall. It was about the power of tourism to nurture our planet’s precious resources while providing lasting economic opportunities for local communities.
I was there talking up the Middle East—not a region in conflict and turmoil, as many think, but a mosaic of cultures, stories, traditions, and warm, welcoming people.
Is the fact that Condé Nast has gotten into the act a good thing or a bad one?