Priority areas in addressing development goals

The United Nations (UN) identified eight priority areas needed to be worked on so as to achieve the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015.

Helen Clark, administrator of the UN Development Program (UNDP), said the agency’s analysis and experience so far highlight eight common areas and opportunities for priority action namely: the need to support country-led development; foster inclusive economic growth; improve opportunities for women and girls; target investments in health and education, in clean water and sanitation and in the professionals who run these services; and scale up social protection and employment programs and other targeted interventions.

Other priorities also include expanding access to energy and promoting low-carbon development; mobilizing domestic resources to finance the MDGs and the international community delivering on the official development assistance commitments it has made and improving the predictability and effectiveness of aid.

The MDGs are: 1) ending extreme poverty and hunger; 2) achieving universal primary education; 3) promoting gender equality and empower women; 4) reducing child mortality; 5) improving maternal health; 6) combating HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases; 7) ensuring environmental sustainability and 8) developing a global partnership for development.

The Philippines is having a tough time meeting goals one, two, five and six.

“If we are to reach the MDGs by the target date, 2010 must spark five years of accelerated progress. That progress needs to reach the countries, communities, and marginalized groups which have been left behind—overlooked, bypassed, and unable to benefit from progress made elsewhere,” Clark said in her speech at the Conference on Development Cooperation in Times of Crisis and on Achieving the MDGs held in Madrid Spain which was provided by the UN Office in Manila.

Clark underscored that the MDGs offers the means to a better life for those living in extreme poverty, offering the poor a life with access to adequate food and income; to basic education and health services; to clean water and sanitation and to empowerment for women.

“Put simply, advancing the MDGs will be an important milestone in our quest for a more just and peaceful world,” Clark added.

World leaders will meet at MDG Summit to be held in New York in September wherein they will be asked to present their MDG Breakthrough Plans for the accelerated achievement of the MDGs by 2015. –Llanesca T. Panti, Manila Times