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UN MILLENNIUM GOALS:
CHALLENGES, IMPLEMENTATION, AND SOCIAL IMPACT

“As the United Nations Charter makes clear, the United Nations was intended to introduce new principles into international relations, making a qualitative difference to their day to day conduct.” ¹

As the process of globalization accelerates the United Nations finds itself increasingly at the center of world events. There are many potent forces transforming the world today. Economic forces are rearranging relations among nations. Civil society is becoming better educated and more fluent in effecting change. As a result the human factor is beginning to become a greater force within the United Nations. Although many programs have been initiated and implemented by the United Nations, perhaps the principles most challenging to the world today are the UN Millennium Goals as created in 2000.

The UN Millennium Goals propose “a world united by common values and striving with renewed determination to achieve peace and decent standards of living for every man, woman and child…”² The United Nations Member States pledged by 2015 to: eradicate extreme poverty and hunger, reducing by half the proportion of people living on less than a dollar a day; 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 by developing further an open trading and financial system that is rule-based and predictable.³

Challenges:
The challenges of meeting these goals are many and complex. One of the most important challenges is to establish peace and stability within and among all war-torn countries. A rearrangement of priorities in allocation of the world financial structure is necessary—global development assistance must be more than doubled over the next few years. This does not require new pledges from donor countries, but meeting pledges already made. “In the last year, we have seen the spectre of gross and systematic violations of international humanitarian law rear its ugly head once again in the Darfur region of the Sudan. Massive human rights violations, including forced displacement, extrajudicial killings and gender-based sexual violence, combined with malnutrition and preventable disease due to a lack of access to food, water and basic sanitation, have led to the death of tens of thousands of people and the displacement of well over a million others, not only internally but also in neighbouring countries…the number of new HIV/AIDS infections was higher in the last calendar year than ever before, raising serious concerns about the development prospects for whole regions of the world in which hundreds of millions of people reside.”⁴ Then there are the challenges from earth changes—tsunamis, hurricanes and other natural disasters. These are just a few of the many challenges facing the world.

Implementation:
In addition to the work of the Non-Governmental organizations and civil society in securing the UN Millennium goals, one of the most important initiatives is the UN Millennium Project, directed by Professor Jeffrey D. Sachs, who is Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University and Special Advisor to Kofi Annan on the Millennium Development Goals. Professor Sachs is internationally renowned for his work as an economic advisor. “The bulk of [the Millennium Project’s] analytical work has been carried out by 10 thematic task forces comprising more than 250 experts from around the world, including scientists, development practitioners, parliamentarians, policymakers, and representatives from civil society, UN agencies, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the private sector. The UN Millennium Project reports directly to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and United Nations Development Programme Administrator Mark Malloch Brown, in his capacity as Chair of the UN Development Group.”⁵ Anyone interested can become a student at the Earth Institute to participate in this, and many other projects.

Social Impact:
According to the overview of the report Investing in Development, produced by the UN Millennium Project, “[T]he world has made significant progress in achieving many of the Goals. Between 1990 and 2002 average overall income increased by approximately 22 percent. The number of people in extreme poverty declined by an estimated 130 million. Child mortality rates fell from 103 deaths per 1000 live births a year to 88. Life expectancy rose from 63 years to nearly 65 years.”⁶

According to a very detailed chart on page 3 of the overview, the status of nations shows that no one country has yet met all the goals, but it is encouraging to note that many member states have met some of the goals. For instance, the Goal to Eradicate Extreme Poverty has been met in Eastern Asia, and is on track in other sections of Asia; literacy parity between young men and women has been met in Eastern and Southeastern Asia, and Latin America and the Caribbean. And there is much more information on progress in the full report.

As Kofi Annan notes in his 2004 report on Implementation of the UN Millennium Declaration, (The Millennium Declaration includes the Development Goals), “…the global community needs an effective framework of norms to govern the behaviour of States, which continue to be the principal actors in international relations. The norms of international law that have been developed to date are a precious legacy from the past and a bedrock of international cooperation in the present.”
“Knowledge, capacity and the political will to act and provide sufficient resources are three necessary components of a successful drive to implement the Millennium Declaration.” ⁷

Through institution and implementation of the UN Millennium Goals the social impact within humanity can be great. The implementation of these goals is a step towards world integration, towards peace and security through the elimination of poverty, and finally, towards freeing each person to pursue his/her creative purpose in the evolutionary journey of our planet.

1. P.1, An Insider’s Guide to the UN, by Linda Fasulo. Yale University Press (2003).

2. From Secretary-General's message to the Fifth World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates, Rome, 10 November 2004. Available online at www.un.org/apps/sg/sgstats.asp?nid=1169

3. A more detailed description of the goals is available from the Millennium Development Goals web pages, found at: www.un.org/millenniumgoals/

4. From the Secretary-General’s 2004 report on Implementation of the United Nations Millennium Declaration. Available online as a PDF at: www.un-ngls.org/MDG/unaction.htm (see under “Reporting” heading)

5. From an overview of Investing in Development: A Practical Plan to Achieve the Millennium Development Goals, The UN Millennium Project, website: www.unmillenniumproject.org.

6. Ibid.

7. See 4. above