MDG

In Sept 2000 at the UN Millennium Summit in New York, rich countries made a commitment to play their part in ensuring that the Millennium Development Goals are met – but their agreements remain unfulfilled. Five years later, MAKE POVERTY HISTORY demands that any new round of international summitry becomes a platform for action.
The Millennium Development Goals (MDG), chosen on the grounds that they were realistic and achievable, are a commitment by global leaders to halve poverty and hunger, provide education for all, improve standards of health, halt the spread of major diseases such as HIV/AIDS, and slow down environmental degradation by 2015.

“This weekend Finance Ministers from the world’s richest economies will meet as the G7group. It is vital that they put together a serious proposal for financing development by dropping the debts of developing countries, which currently cost them $39bn a year. This has to be the year that rich countries take action and increase their aid budgets, reform the rules of trade and finally end the debt burden that is destroying the livelihoods of millions of people”, says Suzie Hamilton, Campaigns Officer, Oxfam Northern Ireland.