The Millennium Development Goals

The
Post-2015 Development Agenda will follow on from the Millennium Development
Goals. The Millennium Development Goals have a target date of 2015; this is
when they are meant to be achieved by. The 8 Millennium Development Goals are:

1. Eradicate
Extreme Poverty and Hunger

2. Achieve
Universal Primary Education

3. Promote
Gender Equality and Empower Women

4. Reduce
Child Mortality

5. Improve
Maternal Health

6. Combat
HIV/AIDS, Malaria and Other Diseases

7. Ensure
Environmental Sustainability

8. Global
Partnership for Development

Although
much progress has been made because of the Millennium Development Goals, there
is still a very long way to go. The Post-2015 Development Agenda will be the
next step. This new development agenda will be called the ‘Sustainable
Development Goals’.

You can read
more about the Millennium Development Goals here.

 

Photo: A Big Project: Birthing in the Gambia ward. This Soroptimist project contributes to Millennium Development Goal 5, ‘Improving Maternal Health’. You can read more about Birthing in the Gambia here.

The Sustainable Development Goals

The
Sustainable Development Goals look to build upon the Millennium Development
Goals, having identified shortcomings and new needs in order for development to
be sustainable.

Civil
society organisations, like Soroptimist International, and other NGOs are keen
for this new development agenda to be more wide-reaching and more detailed than
the Millennium Development Goals. Many governments agree with this. However,
with a broad development agenda it is easier for important groups to be left
out or left behind. This shouldn’t happen, and Soroptimists at the UN are
joining with other NGOs to make sure it doesn’t.

You can read
the current draft of the Sustainable Development Goals here, and more
information on SI’s advocacy work on the Sustainable Development Goals is
available here.

 

Photo: On International Women’s Day, Soroptimists unite to campaign for the rights of women and girls. 

2015 – A Big
Year for Women and Development!

2015 is an
important year for international development. Not only is it the target year
for the Millennium Development Goals, but it is also the 20^th
Anniversary of the Beijing Platform for Action – known as ‘Beijing+20’. The
Beijing Platform for Action was created in 1995, and is still the most
progressive internationally agreed statement of action on women’s rights and
empowerment. This anniversary of the Beijing Platform for Action creates a
global platform for the rights and needs of women and girls to be discussed and
engaged with. Soroptimists will be participating in Beijing+20 events over the
coming months, including the NGO Forum on Beijing+20 in Geneva and the
Beijing+20 global review that will happen CSW59 in New York.

You can read
more about Beijing+20 here.

 

Photo: SI UN Representative Bette Levy (centre) taking part in a UN Women Beijing+20 campaign ‘Empowering Women – Empowering Humanity: Picture It!’