From 14 to 16 September, the High Level Plenary of the 60th session of the General Assembly, also known as the World Summit, will take place at UN Headquarters in New York. The Summit will be the largest-ever gathering of world leaders (more than 170 Heads of State and Government are expected to attend) who will tackle some of the biggest global challenges, such as global poverty, human rights, terrorism and United Nations reform. The review of the implementation of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) will be one of the agenda items.
Eveline Herfkens is the coordinator of the United Nations Millennium Campaign. Involving young people in achieving the goals has been one of her priorities. We asked her a few questions about her work and the role young people can play.
- Can you name three concrete actions that young people can take to reach the MDGs in their countries?
“There are a great many things young people can do to help the global fight against poverty. Young people really are the future of the world. It will not be the old grey haired men at the Millennium Summit or World Trade Organization who suffer the consequences if governments don’t keep their promise to end poverty, it will be you, the young people who will have to live in a world that allows more than a billion people to live on less than $1 US dollar day. It is your future; it only makes sense that you become part of the solution.
Quite simply, without the help of young people, the Millennium Development Goals cannot, and will not be achieved by 2015. So now we get to the question of what you can do to help achieve the Goals. This depends whether you are from a rich or poor country. If you live in a rich country, your government has promised to achieve Goal 8, which is to develop a true partnership between rich and poor countries by providing more and better quality aid, more debt relief, and more trade opportunities for poor countries. Young people from developing countries should know that their governments promised to achieve the first seven Goals, which ensure
everyone has equal access to education, health care, food and water.
The first thing that you should do is get the facts. One of the key indicators for Goal 8 is their promise to give 0.7% of their national
income to the poorest countries of the world. You can visit our website to find out how your country is doing. If you’re from a developing country you should find out if your government is using the Millennium Development Goals in its decision-making. Does your government have a plan to raise poor people out of poverty, and get every child, boy and girl, into school?
If not, they’re not living up to their promises.
The second thing you can do is to help get the word out about the Goals. You would be surprised how few people know that their government promised to reduce poverty by 2015. Let your friends and family know what the Goals are and why they are important. You could pass out flyers on the Millennium Development Goals or even have a school assembly on the Goals. Be creative, you know the best way to reach your friends.
The third thing you can do is let your government know that you want the Goals to be achieved in your country. Many young people have successfully become involved in their youth parliaments or councils to lobby governments to achieve the Goals. You could also start a letter writing campaign to remind an elected official of their promises, or organize a rally in your community. I’ve always felt that the best ideas are homegrown and you probably have many more creative ideas than I do on how to draw attention
to the problems.
The more voices you can get together, the more powerful you become. Many young people think that because they cannot vote yet, their voices don’t matter. But just imagine if you were a government official and only one person called you to fix a broken road. You might not pay much attention, but if 1,000 people called you to complain, you might change your mind. I’m convinced that when young people team up and unite their voices, they can do whatever they want to.”
- The UN World Youth Report 2005 argues that, in order for the MDGs to be achieved, investments in youth development should be ‘scaled-up’. Would you agree that young people are a specific group that need more focused attention from policy makers and donors?
“Certainly, young people have to be considered as part of the solution. Over 2.8 billion people on our planet today are under the age of 25, and if we don’t take the time to listen to these voices we will never have any hope of ever achieving the Millennium Goals in ten years. We must not only do more to understand the unique problems young people face, we must also do much more to include young people in the process of development. I am proud to say that while I was the Minister for Development Cooperation in
the Netherlands, I led my delegation at the Children’s Summit and not only did our youth representative deliver the national speech in the plenary, she also wrote the entire speech by herself without any interference from any adult. I really do believe that the youth of the world today have the motivation and abilities to make poverty a thing of the past and achieve all of the Millennium Goals by 2015.”
- Are the MDGs still reachable before 2015?
“I have been working in development cooperation my entire life and I can tell you that before the year 2000, the world wasted 25 years disagreeing about the best way to end poverty. With the Millennium Goals, we have for the first time in history a global promise that everybody agrees on. We can finally put all the talking behind us and concentrate on action to improve the lives of the millions who go to bed hungry every night. Now there has been a lot of talk about whether we will, or will not reach the Goals by 2015. I think this is counterproductive. We should instead be asking ourselves, “Why aren’t we going beyond the Goals by 2015?” I don’t think it is too much to ask the world to ensure every boy and girl can attend primary school. I am not ashamed to demand that our environment isn’t polluted for our children. The beauty about the Goals is that if we achieve one it helps achieve the others. You can’t solve HIV/AIDS without education, and you can’t eliminate hunger without having a healthy environment.
- Is there anything you would like to add?
“Just one story. A few years ago, I was giving a speech to a group of children on the Millennium Development Goals and the need of governments to ensure that every boy and girl go to school by 2015. At the end of my talk a ten-year-old girl stood up and asked me, “But Madam Minister, why do you want to wait until 2015.” I am normally one of those politicians who always has an answer to everything, but this time I had no credible excuse for her. I was so ashamed to be part of a generation that allowed today’s
babies to grow up to become part of the millions that cannot afford to go to school or feed their own families. I sincerely hope none of you will ever be put in the same situation I was in. I want your world to be different. You deserve a world where stories of young boys and girls dying of diseases that cost pennies to treat only exist in history books. You deserve a world where equal education for all is a reality instead of a dream. You deserve a world where no one knows what it’s like to go to bed hungry. The beautiful thing is, if we achieve the Goals, we can do all of this, but only if we all work together. We are the first generation that can finally put an end to the disgrace of poverty. Please, please join me and refuse to miss this historic opportunity.”
To find out more about the UN Millennium Campaign and how you can join the global fight against poverty, please visit their websites:
http://www.millenniumcampaign.org
http://www.millenniumcampaign.org/youth
http://www.youthoftheworld.net
To visit the World Summit page: http://www.un.org/summit2005/
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