Accountability and global goals:Why
does it matter if the poorest people on earth are not told the truth about
government commitments?
With commentary
Matt Berkley
Version of 23 December 2015
Note:Mention of particular material
does not imply acceptance of its accuracy.
Readers are recommended to consult the original documents.
Mention of statistics does not imply acceptance of the philosophy, methods or
results.
"In two cases..."current
rates" is used, directly specifying a 2000 baseline. ...
This would imply a 2000 baseline year of the Millennium Declaration. "
"Almost 15 years ago, the [1990-baseline] Millennium Development Goals were agreed."
UN Summit 2015
""Millennium Development Goals"...which
member states never formally adopted."
US Ambassador to the UN, August 2005
Heads of State and Government and High Representatives at the United Nations,
25 September 2015:
"We…reaffirm the outcomes of all major United Nations conferences and
summits…
[This reaffirmation, like other reaffirmations from 2001 to 2015, includes
the 1996 World Food Summit pledge to halve the number, not just the easier
"proportion", of hungry people by 2015 and, clearly, the Millennium
Summit pledges]
Almost 15 years ago, the Millennium Development Goals [!] were agreed."
[Although the public would be likely to think this means world leaders'
pledges of 2000, in fact no-one mentioned "Millennium Development
Goals" at the Millennium Summit.
What were agreed "almost 15 years ago" were the more ambitious
2000-baseline Millennium Declaration pledges.
The US repeatedly stated in 2005 that member states had not agreed the
Millennium Development Goal framework proposed by the Secretary-General in
2001.]
“We, the Heads of State and
Government, or our Representatives and the Representative of the European
Community... decide to: ...
Ensure...actionto fully
realize the target of Millennium Development Goal and the 1996 World Food Summit goal,
namely to reduce respectively the proportion and the number of people who suffer from hunger and malnutrition by half by 2015.”
That pledge is to around 500 million people by the current methodology for
hunger (meaning lack of calories:malnutrition estimates would be higher) while the current estimates are
around 800 million.
2000:
"...at the dawn of a new millennium…
We resolve…by…2015...to have reduced…child mortality by two thirds, of their current rates"
[to about 3.6 million child deaths in 2015, or 10,000 deaths a day
– not the 4.3 million of the MDG target]
"U.N. Document Clarifies
Development Goals, State's Silverberg Says
16 September 2005
New York – The negotiated final summit
document expected to be adopted September 16 by the U.N. General Assembly
clarifies that the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are those agreed to by the United States and other
U.N. members in the 2000 Millennium
Declaration, says Assistant Secretary of State Kristen Silverberg.
“Sometimes people use [the term] MDGs to mean
other things, in particular of a list of targets and indicators that were in a
document the [U.N.] secretariat produced” following the Millennium Declaration,
Silverberg said. The United States
did not negotiate that [1990-baseline "MDG"] document or agree to it and neither did many other
states. It is solely a document of the secretariat, she said.
...“The outcome [final summit]
document clarifies the term MDGs, which means goals in the [2000-baseline]Millennium Declaration,”
she said."
"The landmark Millennium Declaration, adopted
in 2000, and the 2005 World Summit Outcome Document, reflect the commitment of Member States to reach specific goals..."
• To ensure the freedom of the media
to perform their essential role and the
right of the public to have access to information. …
We will spare no effort to
make the United Nations a more effective instrument for pursuing all of these priorities: the fight for
development for all the peoples of the world, the fight against poverty, ignorance…
We
request the General Assembly to review on a regular basis the progress
made in implementing the provisions of this Declaration, and ask the
Secretary-General to issue periodic reports for consideration by the General
Assembly and as a basis for further action.
We solemnly reaffirm, on this historic
occasion, that the United Nations is the indispensable common house of the
entire human family, through which we will seek to realize our universal
aspirations for peace, cooperation and development. We therefore pledge our unstinting support for these
common objectives"
"THE
DEVELOPMENT GOALS IN THE MILLENNIUM DECLARATION ADOPTED BY UN
MEMBER
STATES ARE...:
--
TO HALVE, BY THE YEAR 2015, THE PROPORTION OF THE WORLD'S PEOPLE WHOSE
INCOME IS LESS THAN ONE DOLLAR A DAY AND THE PROPORTION OF PEOPLE WHO
SUFFER FROM HUNGER AND, BY THE SAME DATE, TO HALVE THE PROPORTION OF
PEOPLE WHO ARE UNABLE TO REACH OR TO AFFORDSAFE DRINKING WATER. ...
--
BY THE SAME DATE, TO HAVE REDUCED MATERNAL MORTALITY BY THREE QUARTERS,
AND UNDER-FIVE CHILD MORTALITY BY TWO THIRDS, OF THEIR CURRENT RATES.
THE SECRETARIAT'S "MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT
GOALS"...
...48 INDICATORS...
...THESE
INDICATORS WERE NEVER SUBJECT
TO INTER-GOVERNMENTAL NEGOTIATIONS...WE,
THEREFORE, DO NOT WANT THEM PRESENTED AS BEING AGREED AMONG GOVERNMENTS.
.. RICE"
FM SECSTATE WASHDC
TO
ALL DIPLOMATIC AND CONSULAR POSTS COLLECTIVE
ALSO FOR AID MISSIONS US State Department
2005
pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/Pcaab560.pdf
Why are people interested in easier global targets than governments are
committed to?
In 2013, 2014 or 2015 your country probably recommitted to the 2000-baseline
Millennium Declaration and other ambitious targets.
It is probably also committed to the more ambitious target of halving the 1996
number of hungry people by 2015.
In March 2000, the UN Secretary-General urged UN members to adopt targets to
halve the proportions of people:
- "now existing" on under a
dollar a day, and
- "between now and 2015" without
safe and affordable water.
The United States, the United Kingdom, Spain and Switzerland among other
states welcomed his report containing those proposals.
In the Millennium Declaration countries resolved to reduce mortality from "current rates".
Many think that in 2000, UN member states adopted the easier 1990-baseline
MDGs.
Others think member states adopted the easier MDGs in 2001.
Over the decades, the UN has made various commitments on poverty.
The Millennium Declaration, for example, contains more goals, and more
ambitious goals, than the generally easier "Millennium Development
Goals" proposed later.
The UN has not replaced the older promises, but reaffirmed them.
So why are people interested in the heavily-advertised, but easier, targets?
And why is it not obvious that anyone interested in helping the poor would
not want them to be in the dark about what their governments pledged, and
recommitted to in 2013 and in many cases in 2015?
In 2013 Heads of State and Government and heads of delegation at the UN
reaffirmed a commitment of 2000, in which they "resolved" to bring
the number of children dying in 2015 to under 3.6 million.
That is 2,000 fewer deaths every day than the 4.3 million deaths in 2015 of the
MDG target, which the US stated the UN General Assembly did not even endorse in
2005.
The difference between 2000 and 2015 is around 5 million children's lives.
In the Summit resolution of 2005, leaders recommitted to more ambitious
pledges in the Declaration and other agreements.
It is not clear why anyone would compare progress to the easier targets,
instead of the actual pledges.
Member states did not agree the generally easier Millennium Development Goal
targets "almost 15 years ago".
The General Assembly reaffirmed the 2000-baseline Millennium Declaration in
2001, 2003, 2005, 2007, 2008 and 2013.
Why did Heads of State and Government make that misleading statement in
2015?
Is it because the MDGs have easier targets than leaders actually agreed fifteen
years ago?
"the [2015 Summit] declaration needs to showthe international community'sresolve
to fulfil the promise of the
Millennium Declaration...." Statement on behalf of the European Union
February 2015 http://eu-un.europa.eu/articles/en/article_16119_en.htm
"...essential contribution to achieving the internationally agreed
development goals, including
those contained in the Millennium
Declaration."
"Rome, 27 August 2002 -- The
World Food Summit: five years later, which ended 13 June, called for an
international alliance to accelerate action to reduce world hunger. It also
unanimously adopted a declaration calling on the international community to
fulfil an earlier pledge to
cut the number of hungry people to
about 400 million by 2015. That pledge was made at the original World
Food Summit in 1996 - the largest-ever global gathering of leaders to address
hunger and food security -"
Original documents contradict common and other statements on international
pledges.
The incorrect statements come from UN agencies, the media, some academics
and others.
Some of the incorrect statements are at ungoals.org.
Some key points
1. It is not clear on what basis people refer to 1990-baseline Millennium
Development Goal targets as "promises".
It is not clear why many academics, journalists and others are interested in
the MDG targets and progress against them, rather than the promises actually
made in 2000 - or in other years.
Leaders did refer to the MDGs as commitments in 2010, while also recalling the
Declaration.
However, some of the Declaration's promises, along with other promises
reaffirmed in 2013, are more ambitious.
That makes the easier but heavily-publicised MDG targets essentially, in terms
of commitments, redundant.
As stated by Thomas Pogge and subsequently by
Peter Singer, George Kent, Frances Moore Lappe and in a reversal of his
previous position by John McArthur, the Millennium
Declaration has no 1990 baseline, but does have a baseline of "current rates" for child and maternal
mortality.
(see my comments below the article for factual clarifications)
Apart from defying common sense, the Guardian's idea flies in the face of the
document the Summit was working from: the Secretary-General's Millennium Report
gives "poverty" statistics for 1996.It gives "poverty" estimates for 1998, and urges 2000
baselines for money and water.
Further, the 1990 data would have been even less reliable than more recent
data, so it would have been even more irresponsible to formulate goals on their
basis.
On 6 November 2001 the committee of heads of UN development agencies confirmed
that the Declaration text "would imply" a 2000 baseline.Other evidence points the same way.
I am unaware of anyone having made the same claim about this as the
Guardian, which is at best ill-informed speculation.
It is not clear why the Trustees of the British Broadcasting Corporation
claimed in the Editorial Standards Committee report of June/July 2015 that the
"less demanding" MDG target on child mortality was a
"commitment" in the context of 2001.There was no such commitment by the General Assembly.
2. Unless Ted Turner and Bill and Melinda Gates have been lying, for which
there is no firm evidence, some of the poorest and richest people have been
misinformed on what leaders pledged in 2000.
Several well-known, but easier, MDG targets have been widely, but falsely
represented as those commitments.
3. Something often overlooked in accounts of international goals is
this:
The United Nations General Assembly
reaffirmed the Millennium Declaration in 2001, 2003, 2005, 2007, 2008 and 2013.
It also expressed determination to achieve other goals from summits and
conferences.
4. In July 2015leaders at Addis Ababa, and
subsequently the General Assembly, recommitted
to
a) economic conditions necessary to
fulfil the (2000-baseline) Millennium Declaration goals, and
b) a global information campaign publicising those and other internationally
agreed goals.
5. Targets for "developing
regions" would make proportional targets easier due to higher
growth
rates in total population, as explained by Thomas Pogge for over a decade.
Those
easier targets for "developing regions" are not in the Millennium
Declaration of 2000, and not in the MDG official lists of 2003 or 2008.
6. The MDGs clearly are not "the world's biggest
promise".That detracts from the
World Food Summit pledge, the Millennium pledges and other commitments.
The Millennium Declaration has
a) more ambitious "development" targets and
b) wider scope including on governance and human rights.
7. The General Assembly did not,
as some academics and experts have claimed, that the United Nations mention the
easier MDG targets, or the
report annex containing them, in 2001.
It mentioned the Secretary-General's Road Map, which contained them but also
concerned meeting the Declaration goals.
8. The MDG target for water does not,
as has been widely assumed, mention
the easier 1990 baseline.
9. To my knowledge, all accounts of the MDGs from "MDG architects"
or based on interviews with them, or from UN agencies, academics, think-tanks
or others omit the following:
A document dated 14 and 17 September 2001 – after the Secretary-General
produced the proposed MDG framework - appears to be a claim from the "MDG
architect" representing the rich countries via the Organisation for
Economic Co-operation and Development, and from the OECD Secretariat as a whole,
that the MDG negotiators agreed a 2000
baseline for the MDG water target.
10. Leaders' commitment at the World
Food Summit to work to halve the number of hungry people by 2015 does not, as the UN Food and Agriculture
Organisation has claimed in recent years, have
a "1990-2" baseline.
That idea, like the Guardian newspaper's idea on the Millennium pledges - that
leaders' commitment of 1996 relating to the "present level" meant
some earlier year - is against common sense.
Further, in reality the FAO itself,
and the Committee on World Food Security responsible for monitoring progress, stated in the early years of
follow-up that the baseline was 1996.
The official monitoring form for countries to report progress had a 1996
baseline, and was filled in by at least some countries.
11. A wide variety of false and misleading statements has been made by UN
staff, politicians, journalists and others on
a) government commitments and
b) progress against those commitments.
The misinformation seems to take some of what little political power the
poorest have and undermine democracy.
A large amount of further documentary evidence on the misinformation, on global
pledges and progress, is at:
Note: As can be seen from other writings from this author, such as
millenniumdeclaration.org/hunger.pdf , information in the present document on
goals should not be taken as endorsing those goals.
For example, the author put to experts beginning in 2000, including Jonathan
Morduch, who later became chair of the UN poverty statistics committee in
August 2000, and two MDG architects and Jeffrey Sachs in April 2001, this
problem:
UN targets show "better" progress if the poor die.
………………………………………………………
Introduction
This document presents facts.
It is not difficult to see from these documents that many official statements
and media reports, and some academic publications, on international goals over
the last 15 years have misled the public.
But here is my opinion:
There may beno great problem in an
honest mistake, or even in believing that official sources are telling the
truth.
But false reporting in this area may cause problems for the poorest or most
vulnerable.
Too much in academics' and experts' accounts of "what leaders pledged
in 2000" and Millennium Development Goals is based on assertion rather
than fact – too much on what other people say, and not enough on primary
sources – documents from the actual events about which assertions are being
made.
These things are important because politicians and others in 2015 are making
false claims.
It seems to me that people who are informed of the discrepancies between
what citizens are told about government pledges, or progress reports, and the
reality, but still think there is no great problem, are crazy, irresponsible,
or both.
The idea that it is acceptable to
give aid to poor people while tolerating official and corporate distortion of
the truth about pledges to them is to me idiotic.
It seems to me that people who come to know of the discrepancies between the
propaganda and the reality who do not see this, or are unwilling to adjust
their behaviour, should only have roles in recommending policies for the
poorest people on earth, or in reporting news about them, which protect the
poorest or most vulnerable from the effects of the stupidity or selfishness of
those people.
2009:
“We, the Heads of State and
Government, or our Representatives and the Representative of the European
Community... decide to: ...
...commit to take action
towards sustainably eradicating hunger at
the earliest possible date.
Ensure...actionto fully
realize the target of Millennium Development Goal and the 1996 World Food Summit goal,
namely to reduce respectively the proportion and the number of people who suffer from hunger and malnutrition by half by 2015.”
Resolution adopted at the UN General Assembly
25 September 2015:
"...implementation of...the
outcomes of the major United Nations
conferences and summits ...
Follow-up to the outcome of
the [2000-baseline] Millennium Summit...
We, the Heads of State and Government
and High Representatives...
Our shared principles and commitments
10. The new Agenda is…grounded in…the [2000-baseline]
Millennium Declaration…"
"We envisage...A world where we reaffirm our commitments regarding the
human right to safe drinking water and sanitation"
We…reaffirm the outcomes of all major United Nations
conferences and summits…
Almost 15 years ago, the [1990-baseline]Millennium
Development Goals were agreed.[!]....
"We will...while remaining
consistent with relevant international rules and commitments."
"We commit to providing inclusive
and equitable quality education at all levels"
Note: The leaders broke their commitment to "inclusive...quality
education" within days, and arguably in their own resolution.
The World' Largest Lesson material facilitated by UN agencies contains the
misleading idea - also expressed by David Cameron in his speech at the UN
summit - that the MDGs were adopted in 2000.
The leaders' words "almost 15 years ago" are
likely to confirm a wrong impression that at the Millennium Summit, which was
the meeting which in reality took placefifteen years ago, leaders of the time only committed to meeting the
easier MDG targets.
Leaders at the UN did not mention the phrase MDGs until
2005, when they at the same time reaffirmed the Declaration, and the US still
claimed that leaders were referring not to the 1990-baseline MDG targets but to
those in the Declaration.
Leaders are still
committed to the more ambitious Millennium Summit goals – making the
MDGs look like, partly,
a public relations exercise to distract.
Why did the world's leaders make that misleading statement in 2015?
Because MDGs have easier targets than leaders actually agreed, which Heads of
State and Government and heads of delegation reaffirmed in 2013?
"We...reaffirm the
outcomes of all major United Nations conferences and summits…"
Comment:Those commit nations, for
example, to:
- reducing child mortality by 2015 to a third of its 2000 rate
- saving about 5 million more children over 2000-15 than for the MDG target;
and working to
- halve the number of hungry by 2015 from the 1996 rate.
Some outcomes reaffirmed in 2015 are more ambitious than these.
• To strive for the full protection
and promotion in all our countries of civil,
political, economic, social
and cultural rights for all.
…• To work collectively for more inclusive political processes,
allowing genuine participation
by all citizens in all our countries.
• To ensure the freedom of the media
to perform their essential role and the
right of the public to have access to information. …
...Success in meeting these objectives
depends, inter alia, on good
governance within each country. It also depends on good governance at the international level…
We
will spare no effort to make the
United Nations a more effective instrument for pursuing all of these priorities: the fight for
development for all the peoples of the world, the fight against poverty, ignorance…
We
request the General Assembly to review on a regular basis the progress
made in implementing the provisions of this Declaration, and ask the
Secretary-General to issue periodic reports for consideration by the General
Assembly and as a basis for further action. ...
We solemnly reaffirm, on this historic
occasion, that the United Nations is the indispensable common house of the
entire human family, through which we will seek to realize our universal
aspirations for peace, cooperation and development. We therefore pledge our unstinting support for these
common objectives and our determination to achieve them."
"The Millennium Development Goals
(MDGs) established by the international community in the year 2000..." [!]
The MDGs are a group of eight broad development goals agreed to by 189 U.N.
member states—including the United States—as part of the 2000 Millennium
Declaration." [!]
Congressional Research Service
In Focus [!]
United States
8 July 2015
"The event was extremely well
attended, demonstrating the
commitment of parliamentarians to realising the Millennium Declaration..."
"Consistent with the call in the Monterrey Consensus for a “global information
campaign”, the Millennium Campaign aims to increase...support needed to
achieve the MDGs" [!]
"Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead:
....Your Lordships show not only a real grasp of the issues but a passion for
working for change. There is the global commitment to halving poverty by 2015. The millennium declaration is a unique
compact between the north and the south"
"the Declaration we
are about to adopt at this Summit...
broad range of commitments, and the specificity
of the language and the time scales mean that we can and
will be held accountable"
Prime Minister of Ireland, 6 September 2000
"let us be honest at this
Millennium Summit, too many times we have set new deadlines to reach old goals."
Prime Minister of Denmark, 8 September 2000
"We resolve…by…2015...to have
reduced…child mortality by two thirds, of their current rates"
Millennium Declaration, 8 September 2000
"The General Assembly…
Invites the organizations and agencies…
and encourages other interested parties…
to continue to pursue vigorously...the... [2000-baseline] goals contained in the Millennium Declaration…"
16 December 2002
"Man has the fundamental right to
freedom, equality and adequate conditions of life, in an environment of a
quality that permits a life of dignity and well-being, and he bears a solemn
responsibility to protect and improve the environment for present and future
generations. In this respect, policies
promoting ... oppression
...stand condemned and must be
eliminated."
"We, the Commonwealth Heads of
Government....recognise the importance of meaningful social protection for
all..."
MB note: But telling citizens what governments are committed to is social protection,
and telling them falsehoods about this is to act against social protection.
"...in achieving inclusive
development, and also as an important tool in addressing poverty, inequality,
vulnerability and social exclusion. Given the varying degrees of vulnerability
to crises, particularly among the developing states, we underline the need for
having proactive national initiatives on social protection, based on relevant
international agreements....
We recall the Millennium Declaration
and the outcome of the United Nations General Assembly special event on the
MDGs. We reaffirm their commitment to the Millennium Declaration..."
"Countries, organizations and
individuals have to complete the work of the last 15 years, and ensure the
commitment to the Millennium Declaration and the Millennium Development
Goals, particularly on gender equality and women’s empowerment (goal 3), are
taken forward in the post-2015 development agenda."
"We, the Heads of State and Government and high-level representatives... recommit to fully implement
the internationally agreed commitments
related to Africa's development needs, particularly
those contained in the United Nations Millennium
Declaration... "
"Let
there be no doubt: the United States supports the development goals of the
Millennium Declaration. ...
The next year...the Secretariat formulated....“Millennium Development Goals.”
They are solely a Secretariat product, which
member states never formally adopted.
...UN
member states have consistently agreed to use the formulation “internationally
agreed development goals, including those in the Millennium Declaration” in negotiated texts. This spells out exactly what we are committed
to....
...must not backtrack on previous
agreements or create ambiguity....
...President Bush said..."America
supports the international development goals in the UN Millennium Declaration." We remain committed to work
with member states in support of
those goals."
"The U.S. never signed onto it. Other
member-states didn't sign onto it. So we try to be very precise when
we're talking about the Millennium Declaration to say we support the goals in the Millennium Declaration that were
subject to U.S. agreement."
"Our views on the sub-headings of the Development Chapter [of leaders'
2005 World Summit outcome document] are summarized below:
Paragraph 16 -17 (Introduction)...
"In this section as in others, the U.S. proposes using the phrase internationally agreed development goals
rather than the term Millennium
Development Goals in order to be clear that we are referring to goals
agreed among governments --not the subsequent more elaborate framework of
goals, targets and indicators prepared by the UN secretariat."
“We, the representatives of
the peoples of the world…
commit ourselves to...
expedite... the… targets... reduce, by 2015, mortality rates...
under 5 by two thirds, and
maternal mortality rates by three quarters,
of the prevailing rate in 2000... "
"The...summit document expected
to be adopted September 16 by the U.N. General Assembly clarifies that the Millennium Development Goals
(MDGs) are those agreed to by
the United States and other U.N. members in
the 2000 Millennium Declaration, says Assistant Secretary of State
Kristen Silverberg. ...
Silverberg said the United States continues to “strongly
support”the goals it agreed to in the Millennium Declaration, such as reducing world poverty by
half by 2015...
“Sometimes people use [the term] MDGs to mean...a list...in a document the [U.N.] secretariat produced”
following the Millennium Declaration, Silverberg said.The United States did not negotiate that document or agree to it and neither did many other states.
It is solely a document of the secretariat, she said.
She said confusion about the U.S.
stance on the MDGs was a result of erroneous reports presented by some media
about the meaning of the term “Millennium Development Goals.”
“The [world leaders'] outcome document clarifies the term MDGs, which means goals in the Millennium Declaration,” she said."
"The
landmark Millennium Declaration....
and the 2005 World Summit Outcome Document... reflect the commitment of
Member States to reach specific goals..."
"...shared responsibility, as already enshrined in the Millennium Declaration. We need to recommit and build
more clearly on the Millennium
Declaration..."
"15 years ago, as we were
ushering in the new millennium, the international community made solemn commitment to the Millennium
Declaration and the Millennium Development Goals. As we now embark on
the intergovernmental process of defining a new Post-2015 Development Agenda,
we should all be mindful that investment in the unfinished work of the
Millennium Development Goals must continue. We must build on the successes of the MDGs, keeping in mind the Millennium
Declaration"
Statement by H. E. Minister MaiteNkoana-Mashabane,
Minister of International Relations and Cooperation
South Africa
At the High-Level Segment of the 28th Session of the United Nations Human
Rights Council
3 March 2015
Geneva, Switzerland http://www.dfa.gov.za/docs/speeches/2015/mash0303.htm
""Reaffirming [the UK's] commitment to the Millennium Declaration
(2000) and the Programme of Action of the International Conference on
Population and Development (1994) by empowering women through universal access
to education, family planning and reproductive health services will ensure:... Reduced Maternal and Infant Mortality & Morbidity rates...
It is time for us to stand up and fight for women's rights..."
1. We renew our global commitments
made in the Rome Declaration at the World Food Summit in 1996 in particular to
halve the number of hungry in the world no later than 2015, as reaffirmed
in the United Nations Millennium Declaration."
[Incorrect.The Millennium Declaration
is to halve the easier "proportion" rather than "number",
and uses by implication a 2000 baseline rather than 1996.]
"We resolve to accelerate the implementation of the WFS Plan of
Action."
All commitments assumed with the
Rome Declaration and Plan of Action in 1996 were reaffirmed...
...The most recent estimates for the 2006-2008 period set the number of people
in the developing regions who are undernourished at 850 million, which
corresponds to 15.5 per cent of the world population. This compares to 791
million and 16.8 per cent of world population in 1195-1997. ...
UNEP Calls for More Action on Water
Issues At Johannesburg Summit
"STOCKHOLM, 12 August 2002 - It
is vital that world leaders tackle the growing global water crisis before it's
too late and start implementing the Millennium
Declaration goals, the head of the United Nations Environment Programme
(UNEP) said today.
...The UN Millennium Declaration goal
is to halve, by 2015, the proportion
of people who do not have access to safe drinking water (currently 20 per
cent)."
“We, the Heads of State and
Government, or our Representatives and the Representative of the European
Community... decide to: ...
...commit to take action
towards sustainably eradicating hunger at
the earliest possible date.
Ensure urgent national,
regional and global actionto fully realize the target of
Millennium Development Goal and the
1996 World Food Summit goal, namely to reduce respectively the
proportion and the number of people who suffer from hunger and malnutrition by
half by 2015.”
Ban
Ki-moon, UN Secretary-General “The norms and values embedded in the Millennium Declaration and international human rights
instruments must continue to provide
the foundation for engagement, in particular the key human rights
principles of non-discrimination, meaningful participation and accountability”.
"Commit4Africa is an online
searchable database enabling users to track declarations and commitments made by Heads of State at high level
international summits. Commit4Africa is sponsored by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa
(UNECA) and the OECD
in support of the Mutual
Review of Development Effectiveness (MRDE) coordinated by these
organisations, most recently in 2009. The Commit4Africa site was
officially launched in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on October 17 2008.
The
Initiative
The logic behind Commit4Africa is to have
one space where users can immediately access relevant declarations and
decisions, rather than trace an ever burgeoning body of literature disbursed
across numerous institutions. It is hoped that this will encourage a wide range
of users to monitor and assess
commitments, holding governments more accountable to the promises they have
made. Importantly, Commit4Africa explicitly conforms to the principles
of objectivity, presenting an undiluted resource for its users.
The
Process
All key, high level declarations made
by Heads of State have been collated from numerous institutional online
records, including the UN, AU, G8, G20, WTO, FAO, OECD, EU and ILO. Commitments
have then been extracted and coded according to a range of parameters, such as
sectoral and sub-sectoral relevance, the level of commitment (heads of state,
ministerial etc.) and scope of commitment (global development commitments of
significance for Africa, Africa- and sub-regional specific commitments)."
"We, parliamentarians from across the globe...
call for our governments to recommit
to the Millennium Declaration....as a priority on the political agenda
...
We, Parliamentarians, have the mandate
to monitor government action and hold
our government to account for promises made – including at
international conferences. We believe a promise is a promise, and a promise to
the world’s poor should not be taken lightly"
Interparliamentary seminar
Final Declaration
MDGs Parliamentary Sub-Committee of the Italian Chamber of Deputies Foreign
Affairs Committee
UN Millennium Campaign
The Role of National Parliaments in Achieving the Millennium Development Goals
July 2nd 2009 http://leg16.camera.it/543?shadow_mostra_allegato=22953
"Let
there be no doubt: the United States
supports the development goals
of the Millennium Declaration.
...
The
next year, the Secretariat issued a report on the implementation of the
Millennium Declaration. Based on the goals in the Declaration, the Secretariat formulated a package
of goals and subsidiary targets and indicators, referring to them as “Millennium Development Goals.”
They are solely a Secretariat product, which
member states never formally adopted.
Since
then, the term “MDGs” has become ambiguous. Most people assume that the MDG
targets and indicators were agreed in the Millennium Declaration. In fact, some
of them are drawn from positions agreed by governments and others are simply
Secretariat proposals.
....
To
avoid the ambiguity of the term “MDGs,” UN member states have consistently
agreed to use the formulation “internationally agreed development goals, including those in the Millennium
Declaration” in negotiated texts. This spells out exactly what we are committed to, and
distinguishes the goals adopted by governments from the Secretariat product.
If
the Outcome Document is to move us all forward and garner acceptability by
heads of state, it must not backtrack
on previous agreements or create ambiguity that will be subject to
further misinterpretation. On the eve of the UN Monterrey Conference in 2002,
President Bush said in a speech at the Inter-American Development Bank, "America supports the
international development goals in
the UN Millennium Declaration.” We remain committed to work with member states in support of those goals.
WHO’s contribution to achievement of the development goals of the United
Nations Millennium Declaration.
In: 109th Session of the Executive Board, Geneva, 14-21 January 2002.
Resolutions and
"The landmark Millennium Declaration, adopted
in 2000, and the 2005 World Summit Outcome Document, reflect the commitment of Member States to reach specific goals..."
Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) –
What has the EU achieved?
Brussels, 25 September 2015
In
2000 the Millennium Development Goals were agreed[!] ...
15 years ago, [!] the Millennium Development Goals, or MDGs,
were put in place by the international community "
"The EU has been committed to the Millennium
Development Goals since their adoption in 2000 [!] and has progressively adapted its development policy to help achieve
them."
"In 2000, at the United Nations
Millennium Summit, world leaders agreed to eight specific and measurable
development goals—now called the Millennium Development Goals" [!]
"Ireland, Norway and the United
Kingdom made explicit references to the MDGs from 2000.
[? - MDGs were not to my knowledge
mentioned by anyone until 2001]
In 2004, Switzerland made the MDGs the ultimate reference guiding its
development co-operation.... While referring to the MDGs since 2005... Japan
continued to consider economic growth the primary vehicle for poverty
reduction. It was not until 2008 that Australia referred to the MDGs explicitly
as guiding its programme...Only in 2009 did France define MDG-related sectors
for aid concentration, while the
United States did not set its strategy for meeting the MDGs until 2010....
With a clear set of indicators attached to them, the
[1990-baseline]
MDGs provided a basis for monitoring
progress against concrete targets. This, in turn, helped to hold governments accountable
[!]
for the commitments they had made when they
signed the
"We, the Heads of State and Government and high-level representatives... recommit to fully implement
the internationally agreed commitments related to Africa's development needs,
particularly those contained in the United Nations Millennium Declaration... "
"Sheikh Hasina, Prime Minister of
Bangladesh, stated that over the past 15 years, her country had mobilized its
people and resources to realize the Millennium
Declaration’s commitments "
World Leaders Call for ‘New Chapter’ in Global Growth as General Assembly
Concludes Sustainable Development Goals Summit
Meetings Coverage and Press Releases http://www.un.org/press/en/2015/ga11691.doc.htm
False statement by Jim Yong Kim, President, World Bank Group:
“The international community showed
wisdom and courage fifteen years ago in adopting the Millennium Declaration,
which set out eight ambitious goals " [!] "
"The mandate of
UN Women is guided by...the United Nations Millennium Declaration..."
Job advertisement
UN Women - United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of
Women [!]
Thematic Evaluation on Women’s Leadership and Political Participation[!] 30 September 2015 https://jobs.undp.org/cj_view_job.cfm?cur_job_id=60126
Does understating UN pledges not mean "Disempowerment of Women"?
Does it not hinder their "Leadership and Political Participation"?
"Fifteen years have gone past
since the last Millennium Summit
during which United Nations` member states drafted an ambitious plan... The bar was placed very high.
Not all Millennium Development Goals
[!]have been achieved."
"We, the Heads of State and
Government of...the Group of 77 and
China.... ...decide
to accelerate the implementation of our respective commitments [on full and equal opportunities for women's
participation and leadership in all areas of sustainable development]
...in...the United Nations Millennium Declaration..." Declaration of the Summit of Heads of State and
Government of the Group of 77 For a new
world order for living well Annexed to
letter to the Secretary-General of the UN June 2014 http://www.g77.org/doc/A-68-948(E).pdf
"We, the Heads of State and
Government and heads of delegation...
reaffirm our commitment to the Millennium
Declaration...
and the outcomes of all the
major UN conferences and summits in the economic, social, and
environmental fields."
"The ASEAN-UNICEF
[Agreement] sets the course....for the next five years and beyond. It aims to
pursue their common goals of ensuring sustainable survival.... of children in line with....the
Millennium Declaration..."
"WE, the Heads of State/Government of
Brunei...Cambodia...Indonesia....Lao...Malaysia...Myanmar...Philippines...Singapore...Thailand...
Viet Nam...Association of Southeast
Asian Nations ...
...underscoring the importance of the
Millennium Declaration..." HEREBY DECLARE TO: 1. Reaffirm our commitment to
realise the MDGs"[?]
"the Heads of State and Government of the Hemisphere adopted the
Declaration of Nuevo Leon. ...
We, the democratically elected Heads
of State and Government of the Americas...
reiterate our firm intention
to continue implementing... the commitments
made at the Millennium Summit"
"Dhaka Declaration
Thirteenth SAARC Summit
13 November 2005
The Prime Minister of the
People’s Republic of Bangladesh, Her Excellency Begum Khaleda Zia; the Prime
Minister of the Kingdom of Bhutan, His Excellency Lyonpo Sangay Ngedup; the
Prime Minister of the Republic of India, His Excellency Dr. Manmohan Singh; the
President of the Republic of Maldives, His Excellency Mr. Maumoon Abdul Gayoom;
the King of Nepal, His Majesty Gyanendra Bir Bikram Shah Dev; the Prime
Minister of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, His Excellency Mr. Shaukat Aziz;
and, the President of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, Her
Excellency Mrs. Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga met at the Thirteenth Summit
meeting of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) in
Dhaka, Bangladesh on 12 - 13 November 2005....
They called
upon the international community to redouble efforts to meet thecommitments of the Millennium Summit
and the Monterrey consensus. They noted the outcome of the UN World Summit 2005
and underlined the need for meaningful reforms of the United Nations system in
consonance with its role as the central organ for the cooperative management of
the global problems and for the promotion of peace, security, development,
justice and human rights. They also reiterated their full support for a
comprehensive approach, which would facilitate implementation of the Millennium Declaration and the
Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in a time bound manner."
"“Millennium Development Goals.”....which member states never formally
adopted.."
"[leaders in 2005] must not backtrack on previous agreements or create ambiguity...".
"...President Bush said..."America
supports the international development goals in the UN Millennium Declaration."
We remain committed to work with member states in support of those goals."
"U.S. Representative to the U.N.
Bolton stunned the development community when he announced that the United States rejects the MDGs — the
goals developed by Annan's staff. ...
“The [goals] are solely a [U.N.]
Secretariat product, which member states never formally adopted,” Bolton wrote
in an Aug. 26 letter to his fellow envoys. Although the United States still supports
the 2000 Millennium Declaration on which the goals were based, Bolton
says, Annan's MDGs go too far.
“We're
trying to go back to what governments agreed to,” a member of Bolton's
staff says."
"17 goals...replacing
the
[1990-baseline]
Millennium Development Goals
set in 2000"[!]
[when leaders resolved using a 2000 baseline]
Press
release
25 September 2015
"Unanimously Adopting Historic Sustainable Development Goals, General
Assembly Shapes Global Outlook for Prosperity, Peace" http://www.un.org/press/en/2015/ga11688.doc.htm
"David Cameron, Prime
Minister of the United Kingdom, described some of the “huge strides forward”
that had been made since the adoption of the Millennium Development Goals [!] in 2000." [!]
World
Leaders Call for ‘New Chapter’ in Global Growth as General Assembly Concludes
Sustainable Development Goals Summit
Meetings Coverage and Press Releases
27 September 2015 http://www.un.org/press/en/2015/ga11691.doc.htm
President Truong Tan Sang
(spoke in Vietnamese; English interpretation provided by delegation):
On behalf of the State and the people of Viet Nam...
At the dawn of the millennium, 15 years ago, we adopted a political
declaration, the United Nations Millennium Declaration (resolution 55/2), and
endorsed the actionable
[1990-baseline]
Millennium Development Goals [!]
25
September 2015
President
Johnson-Sirleaf of Liberia:
"Fifteen years ago, the [1990-baseline]
MDGs were launched [!] with a vision to build a better world. At
the Millennium Summit in September 2000, we set [2000-baseline] time-bound targets to address critical
challenges. The world has made significant progress in achieving many of those targets. [?]
"Let this be remembered
as the time when the leadership of the world rose to the occasion and, using
all its God-given wisdom, laid down the foundations of a healthy, safe and
progressive global village to be our collective destiny in the new millennium.
To that end, I pledge most solemnly
the full cooperation of the Organization of the Islamic Conference."
Statement
at the 2000-baseline Millennium
Summit
"Adel Ahmed al-Jubeir,
Minister for Foreign Affairs of Saudi Arabia, said his country had made every
effort to realize the [1990-baseline] Millennium
Development Goals since 2000"
[!]
"Moussa Faki Mahamat,
Minister for Foreign Affairs and Economic Integration of Chad, said 15 years
ago the Millennium Declaration
was adopted unanimously as the most
appropriate response to poverty."
Speakers
Praise Diplomatic Successes over Iran, Cuba-US, Address Long-Standing Africa Conflicts,
as General Assembly Continues Annual Debate | Meetings Coverage and Press
Releases 1 October 2015 http://www.un.org/press/en/2015/ga11697.doc.htm
"All nations were
united by a common purpose
when the Millennium Declaration
was issued 14 years ago. And we agreed then, and I quote, that “... Democratic
and participatory governance
based on the will of the people best assures these rights.” "
"shared responsibility, as already enshrined in the Millennium Declaration. We need to recommit and build more
clearly on the Millennium Declaration, reaffirming its values and
principles, such as solidarity and shared responsibility, and its substantive
human rights content."
22 June 2015
Statement on behalf of the European Union and its Member States
Karl Falkenberg, Director General - DG Environment,
European Commission
United Nations General Assembly Post-2015 intergovernmental negotiations
session http://eu-un.europa.eu/articles/en/article_16598_en.htm
"The EU and its Member States remain strongly committed to the
Millennium Declaration, to accelerating efforts to achieve the
Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and to ensuring that the post-2015 agenda
provides a comprehensive follow-up to Rio+20 and addresses the structural
causes of poverty, inequality...
8 January 2015
Statement delivered on behalf of the European Union
H.E. Ioannis Vrailas, Deputy Head of the Delegation of the European Union to
the UN
United Nations General Assembly Plenary Meeting on the UN Secretary-General's
Priorities for 2015 http://eu-un.europa.eu/articles/en/article_15930_en.htm
"The 2015 United Nations Public Service Forum, Day and Awards Ceremony will take place
in Medellin, Colombia at the Plaza Mayor Medellin Convention and Exhibition
Centerfrom 23 to 26 June 2015. ...
The General Assembly itself has
reiterated, in resolution 57/277, that particular emphasis should be
given to the exchange of experience related to the role of public administration in the implementation of
internationally agreed goals,
including those contained in the
Millennium Declaration"
"We, the Heads of State and Government of...the Group of 77 and China....
...reaffirm the vital role of women and the need for full and equal
opportunities for their participation and leadership in all areas of
sustainable development, and...
...decide to accelerate the
implementation of our respective commitments
in this regard as contained in...
...the United Nations Millennium
Declaration..." June 2014 http://www.g77.org/doc/A-68-948(E).pdf
"The High Level Event on Millennium Review in
September of this year provides an opportunity to assess the implementation of the commitments of the Millennium
Declaration and the results of the major UN Summits and Conferences.
...
The United States and
the European Union...share...the perspective that the interlinked dimensions of
peace and security, human rights, rule of law, democracy, and development need
to be addressed coherently, within more
efficient and transparent
institutions and procedures.[!] ...
Achieving the
development goals of the Millennium
Declaration will require significant additional resources, which should
come from many sources, as set out at Monterrey...
We stand
ready to increase our financial assistance to countries with good governance and sound policies and
transparent, [!] ambitious and
accountable strategies to
achieve long-term economic growth and reach
the internationally-agreed development goals in the Millennium Declaration."
"Too often, humanitarian relief
has been separated from development and from achievement of the goals of the Millennium Declaration...
...if we are to continue the
recent increases in ODA and assure
the goals of the Millennium Declaration are achieved, we must also
ensure aid effectiveness, sustainability and results. ...
With the right choices, we
have a good chance of reaching the
goals we set for ourselves at Monterrey and in the Millennium Declaration."
Andrew
S. Natsios, Administrator for U.S. Agency for International Development Statement to the United Nations High-Level Dialogue on Financing for
Development June 27, 2005 http://2001-2009.state.gov/e/eeb/rls/rm/2005/48689.htm
"We, the Heads of State
and Government of the Member States of the African Union,
...on 4th and 5th July 2005...
Determined furtherto fulfill our
commitments to the Millennium Declaration and the
achievement of the MDGs within the deadline"
USA, Russia, Japan, Germany, France, UK, Italy and Canada
Presidents Bush, Putin, Chirac, Berlusconi
Prime Ministers Blair, Koizumi, Martin
Chancellor Schroeder
President of the European Commission Barroso
July 2005:
"We need to work with our partners to increase access to energy if
we are to support the achievement of the
goals agreed at the Millennium Summit in 2000."
"...the action
needed for all developing countries to meet the Goals agreed at the Millennium Summit in 2000.
...Africa, which is the only continent not on track to meet any of the Goals of the Millennium Declaration
by 2015. ...
The core aims for
education and health are stated in the UN Millennium
Declaration. We support our African partners’ commitment...to reduce mortality ...particularly women and
children; and so that ...people have access to safe water and sanitation. ...
A substantial increase
in official development assistance, in addition to other resources, isrequired in order to achieve
the internationally agreed development goals and objectives, including those
contained in the Millennium
Declaration (the Millennium Goals) by 2015, as we agreed at Monterrey in 2002.Fulfilling this commitment is needed in
order to consolidate and build on recent progress in Africa..."
"Let
there be no doubt: the United States
supports the development goals
of the Millennium Declaration. ...
The
next year...the Secretariat
formulated...“Millennium
Development Goals”...which
member states never formally adopted.
Since
then, the term “MDGs” has become ambiguous. Most people assume that the MDG targets and indicators were agreed
in the Millennium Declaration. In fact, some of them are drawn from
positions agreed by governments and others are simply Secretariat
proposals.....
To
avoid the ambiguity of the term “MDGs,” UN member states have consistently
agreed to use the formulation “internationally agreed development goals, including those in the Millennium
Declaration” in negotiated texts. This spells out exactly what we are committed to, and
distinguishes the goals adopted by governments from the Secretariat product.
If
the Outcome Document is to move us all forward and garner acceptability by
heads of state, it must not backtrack
on previous agreements or create ambiguity that will be subject to
further misinterpretation. On the eve of the UN Monterrey Conference in 2002,
President Bush said in a speech at the Inter-American Development Bank, "America supports the
international development goals in
the UN Millennium Declaration.” We remain committed to work with member states in support of those goals.
"The
General Assembly adopted resolution 56/192…on 21 December 2001. Reaffirming the Millennium Declaration goal of
reducing by half, between 2000 and
2015, the proportion of people who are unable to reach or to afford safe drinking
water, the Assembly…"
“We, the representatives of the peoples of the world…
commit ourselves to the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation and to expedite
the achievement of the time-bound… targets contained
therein.”
Plan of Implementation:
"reduce, by 2015, mortality rates for infants and
children under 5 by two thirds, and maternal mortality rates by three quarters,
of the prevailing rate in 2000 and reduce disparities between and within developed and developing
countries as quickly as possible "
"the target of reducing by half, between now and 2015, the proportion of people who lack sustainable access to
adequate sources of affordable and
safewater
....wasendorsed at the Millennium Assembly of the United Nations
held in September 2000."
"When the summit meeting ends,
there are to be commitments to ambitious global targets. World leaders will
pledge to halve the number of the world’s people who live on less than $1 a
day. There are more than a billion such people.
Almost an equal number — many of them
the same ones — do not have access to clean water. Their number should also be
cut in half by 2015, leaders will say."
"Reuters and The Associated Press
contributed to this report."
[Above references to "number" rather than "proportion" are
incorrect.However, the report seems to
refer to an expectation that the leaders would agree a 2000 baseline.]
"The declaration endorsed…halving
by the year 2015 the 22 percent of the world's population now existing
on less than a dollar a day."
"The
General Assembly… Reaffirming the goal of
reducing by half, between 2000 and
2015, the proportion of people who are unable to reach or to afford
safe drinking water…"
"We, the Heads of State and
Government and heads of delegation...
reaffirm our commitment to the Millennium
Declaration...
and the outcomes of all the
major UN conferences and summits in the economic, social, and
environmental fields."
"universality comes with
shared responsibility, as already
enshrined in the Millennium Declaration.... We need to recommit and build
more clearly on the Millennium Declaration, reaffirming its values and
principles, such as solidarity and
shared responsibility, and its substantive human
rights content."
Statement on behalf of the European Union and its Member States
"The...clear vision embodied by the Millennium
Declaration stands as a model, a
standard of excellence"
Remarks by Tony Pipa,
U.S. Lead Negotiator for the Post-2015 Process,
at the Post-2015 Intergovernmental Negotiation Process February Session
17 February 2015 http://usun.state.gov/remarks/6378
"The Rio+20 outcome document, The
future we want [2012]...set out a mandate to establish an Open Working Group to
develop a set of sustainable development goals...
The Rio outcome gave the mandate that the SDGs should be...integrated into the
UN development agenda beyond 2015. ...
It reaffirmed the commitments
in the outcomes of all the major
United Nations conferences and summits in the economic, social and
environmental fields, including the United
Nations Millennium Declaration..."
"reducing by half, between now and 2015, the
proportion of people who lack sustainable access to adequate sources of
affordable and safe water and to hygienic sanitationfacilities....
This ambitious target....wasendorsed
at the Millennium Assembly of the United Nations held in September
2000."
"GOALS THAT UN MEMBER STATES
HAVE AGREED TO IN THE [MILLENNIUM]DECLARATION....
"MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS"...ARE
SOLELY A SECRETARIAT PRODUCT, NEVER
HAVING BEEN FORMALLY ADOPTED
BY MEMBER STATES.
...THE MILLENNIUM DECLARATION,
WHICH THE UNITED STATES SUPPORTS. ...
FM SECSTATE WASHDC
TO ALL DIPLOMATIC AND CONSULAR POSTS COLLECTIVE
US State Department
26 April 2005
pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/PCAAB560.pdf
………………………………………………………..
In 1996 leaders pledged to halve the number of hungry people not from a
1990-2 baseline but from its "present level".
In 2000 leaders pledged in
the Millennium Declaration to reduce
child mortality by two-thirds not from 1990 rates, but from 2000 rates.
Other pledges in the Declaration were also clearly from 2000 baselines.
The General Assembly reaffirmed
the Declaration's more ambitious pledges on
21 December 2001, in 2003, 2005, 2007, 2008 and 2013.
Leaders reaffirmed the
Declaration in 2005.
Heads of State and Government and heads of delegation reaffirmed the
Declarationin 2013.
In July 2015, leaders reaffirmed the Monterrey Consensus, which called for a
publicity for agreed goals including those of the Millennium Declaration.
On 6 September 2001, the Secretary-General proposed generally easier
"Millennium Development Goal" targets with 1990 baselines.
This reduced the number of children's lives to be saved in 2000-15 by about
5 million.
Contrary to popular belief, the United Nations General Assembly did not commit
to the easier targets in 2000 or 2001.
On 16 December 2002 the Assembly encouraged
"interested parties…to continue to pursue vigorously the achievement of
the objectives and goals contained in the Millennium Declaration".
Leaders reaffirmed the Declaration in 2005 and representatives in 2013.
In July 2015 leaders
reaffirmed a statement that countries would bring economic conditions to fulfil
agreed goals, including Millennium
Declaration pledges.
Several of those are, at a global level and for most countries, more ambitious
than the "Millennium Development Goal" targets.
Despite the General Assembly's call for publicity for the Declaration, the
easier MDG targets were publicised instead of the actual pledges.
The Monterrey Consensus, reaffirmed in 2015, again stated that countries would
help publicise agreed goals
including the Declaration's pledges,
of which several have 2000 baselines.
"We, the Heads of State and
Government and High Representatives...reaffirm
and build on the 2002 Monterrey
Consensus"
2002 Monterrey Consensus:
"Upholding the Charter of the United Nations and building upon the values
of the Millennium Declaration, we
commit ourselves to promoting national and global economic systems
based on the principles of justice, equity, democracy, participation, transparency, accountability and inclusion."
"…economic conditions needed to fulfil internationally agreed
development goals, including those contained in the Millennium Declaration…will
be our first step to ensuring that the twenty-first century becomes the
century of development for all."
"we should encourage…coordination….and
coherence…to meet the Millennium
Declaration development goals"
It is not clear why this statement is made, since the conference outcome
document does not mention MDGs at all:
"The Monterrey conference
established the MDGs as the first global framework anchored in an explicit,
mutually agreed-on partnership between developed and developing
countries."
The 2002 conference outcome documentin fact stated,
"we should encourage policy and
programme coordination of international institutions and coherence at the
operational and international levels to meet the Millennium Declaration development goals..."
In 2013 nations renewed some more ambitious global pledges than the
Millennium Development Goals.
"We, the Heads of State and
Government and heads of delegation... reaffirm our commitment to
the Millennium Declaration... and the outcomes of all the major UN conferences and summits
in the economic, social, and environmental fields."
"At
its fifty-third session, the General
Assembly, convinced that the year 2000 constituted a unique and symbolically
compelling moment to articulate and affirm an animating vision for the
United Nations in the new era, and that a Millennium Assembly would provide an
opportunity to strengthen the role of the United Nations in meeting the
challenges of the twenty-first century, decided to designate the fifty-fifth
session of the General Assembly “The Millennium Assembly of the United Nations”…(resolution
53/202)."
"Annan...asked the United Nation's 188 member states to set
suchambitious goals as...cutting in half the proportion
of people, currently 22 percent
of the global population, who earn less than $1 a day"
"secretary-general...suggests...that
the world could try to halve
by 2015 the figure of 1.2 billion people or 22% of its population, who
currently exist in extreme poverty on less than $1 a day."
...In two cases - maternal mortality and under-five mortality - the term "current rates" is used,
directly specifying a 2000 baseline. For the remainder, the targets are stated
in the form of "to halve by 2015…" This would imply a 2000
baseline year of the Millennium
Declaration. After discussions within the UN system and with
other partners, the issues [?] have been resolved in favour of 1990
serving as the baseline year."
"…PEOPLE…ASSUME
THAT THE "MDGS" ARE AGREED DEVELOPMENT GOALS FROM THE MILLENNIUM DECLARATION, WHICH
THE UNITED STATES SUPPORTS. OFTEN THE UN SECRETARIAT AND
REPRESENTATIVES OF A NUMBER OF COUNTRIES, HOWEVER, USE IT TO REFER TO THE SECRETARIAT
GOALS...…
SUBJECT: THE MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS (MDGS) -- WHAT ARE THEY? 04/26/05
FM SECSTATE WASHDC
TO ALL DIPLOMATIC AND CONSULAR POSTS COLLECTIVE
pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/PCAAB560.pdf
2005:
"We, Heads of State and
Government...reaffirm the
United Nations Millennium
Declaration....
We strongly reiterate our determination
to ensure the timely and full
realization of the development goals and objectives agreed at the major
United Nations conferences and
summits, including those agreed at the Millennium Summit that are described as the Millennium Development Goals… "
[Strange statement.The time-bound
Summit goals are not accurately described as the MDGs.Is "that are described"misleading?]
"we commit ourselves to:
...integrating [the reproductive health] goal in strategies to attain theinternationally agreed development goals, including those contained in the Millennium Declaration, aimed at reducing maternal
mortality, improving maternal health, reducing child mortality...."
"We
therefore resolve to create a more peaceful, prosperous and democratic world
and to undertake concrete measures to continue finding ways to implement the
outcome of the Millennium Summit"
"We
emphasize the critical role of both formal and informal education in the
achievement of poverty eradication and other development goals as envisaged in the Millennium
Declaration"
"22. …we resolve:(a) To adopt, by 2006, and implement
comprehensive national development strategies to achieve the internationally agreed development goals and objectives,
including the Millennium
Development Goals…
(c) …support developing countries by providing a substantial increase in aid of
sufficient quality and arriving in a timely manner to assist them in achieving
the internationally agreed
development goals, including the Millennium Development Goals…"
"23. We
reaffirm the Monterrey Consensus and recognize that mobilizing financial
resources for development and the effective use of those resources in
developing countries and countries with economies in transition are central to
a global partnership for development in support of the achievement of the internationally agreed development
goals, including the Millennium Development Goals."
[Comment:The Monterrey Consensus
states that economic conditions to fulfil internationally agreed objectives,
including those of the Declaration, will be the "first step" and
expresses an intention for a "global information campaign" on those
objectives, again including those of the Declaration. http://www.ycsg.yale.edu/assets/downloads/monterrey_consensus.pdf
]
"We call for strengthened cooperation between the United Nations and
national and regional parliaments, in particular through the
Inter-Parliamentary Union, with a view to furthering
all aspects of the Millennium Declaration"
"Inviting the Secretary-General to launch work to further strengthen the
management and coordination of United Nations operational activities so that
they can make an even more effective contribution to the achievement of the
internationally agreed development
goals, including the Millennium Development Goals"
While leaders in 2005 did refer in other passages of the outcome document to
meeting MDG targets, that makes no difference to the commitments they
reaffirmed to the more ambitious pledges.
……………………………………………………………………….
What is President Obama
committed to?
"We, heads of State and
Government, have gathered at United Nations Headquarters in New York from 6 to
8 September 2000, at the dawn of a
new millennium…
We resolve…by the year 2015...to have reduced maternal mortality by
three-quarters, and child mortality
by two thirds, of their current rates"
[to about 3.6 million child deaths in 2015, or 10,000 deaths a day]
"...Charter of this United
Nations...
Universal Declaration of Human Rights...
a decade ago, at the dawn of a new
millennium, we set concrete goals... These are the standards that we set."
In July
2015 leaders renewed some relevant commitments:
a) to ensure economic conditions to
meet agreed pledges including those in the Millennium Declaration
and
b) to publicise the pledges.
Some of these pledges are generally
more ambitious than the later Millennium Development Goals about which
agreement is less certain.The pledges'
baselines were not backdated.
In July 2015 leaders and the Assembly
reaffirmed commitments to:
1) economic conditions to fulfil agreed goals including those in the Millennium Declaration– which
has a 2000 baseline -
and
2) a global information campaign on the Millennium Declaration and other agreed goals.
The other agreed goals include the 1996 World
Food Summit pledge to work on halving the 1996 number of hungry people
to, by current official FAO method and estimates, about 500 million.
The child mortality target pledged in the Millennium Declaration is about 3.6 million child deaths in
2015, not the 4.3 million implied by the MDG target.
millenniumdeclaration.org
The difference in 2000-15 with constant
progress is about 5 million deaths or children saved, and rising as time goes
by.It is very roughly 2,000 children per
day in 2015.
July 2015:
"We, the Heads of State and
Government and High Representatives...reaffirm
and build on the 2002 Monterrey
Consensus"
2002 Monterrey Consensus:
"…economic conditions needed to fulfil internationally agreed
development goals, including those contained in the Millennium Declaration…will
be our first step to ensuring that the twenty-first century becomes the
century of development for all."
"we should encourage…coordination….and
coherence…to meet the Millennium
Declaration development goals"
"We shall support …a global information campaign on the
internationally agreed development goals
and objectives, including those contained in theMillennium Declaration."
"I am pleased that
the Declaration we are about to adopt at this Summit has such a broad range of
commitments, and the specificity of the language and the time scales mean that we can and will
be held accountable for delivery."
Bertie Ahern, Prime Minister of Ireland 6 September 2000
"The
Co-Chairperson (Namibia): We have come to the close of this historic Millennium
Summit...
We cannot, therefore, afford to go back home from here and continue business as usual."
"The declaration endorsed…halving
by the year 2015 the 22 percent of the world's population now existing
on less than a dollar a day."
"Follow-up
to the outcome of the Millennium Summit...
Executive
summary
The
road map towards the implementation of the United Nations Millennium
Declaration....outlines potential
strategies for action that are designed
to meet the goals and commitments made by the 147 heads of State and
Government, and 189 Member States in total, who adopted the Millennium Declaration.
The
report addresses fully each and every one of the goals and commitments contained in the Millennium Declaration...
Section
III, “Development and poverty eradication: the millennium development goals”,
focuses...
...
as you have requested, I will submit an annual report...which will chart
progress, made or not made, in fulfilling the Millennium commitments...
The road map concludes by noting that there will be annual reports and, every
five years, a comprehensive report on progress made or not made in reaching
these goals. The entire United Nations family of Member States, international
organizations, funds, agencies, programmes, the private sector and civil
society must join together to meet
the lofty commitments that are embodied in the Millennium Declaration.
Success requires solidarity. ...
...1. The United Nations Millennium
Declaration (General Assembly resolution 55/2), which was adopted by
all 189 Member States of the United Nations (147 of them represented directly
by their head of State or Government) on 8 September 2000, embodies a large
number of specific commitments
aimed at improving the lot of humanity in the new century.
2.
In paragraph 18 of its resolution
55/162 on the follow-up to the outcome of the Millennium Summit, the
General Assembly asked me to prepare a “road map” to set out in detail how these commitments could be
fulfilled. That is the purpose of the present report....
The present report not
only examines each of the commitments contained in the Millennium
Declaration in its own right but also considers how they interact with
each other....
At its twenty-fourth special session, held in 2000, the General Assembly
reaffirmed the commitments agreed at the World Summit for Social Development
and produced very significant new initiatives for the eradication of poverty.
In particular, there was agreement for the first time on a global target of
halving the proportion of people living in extreme poverty by 2015, and the
commitment to the global targets for poverty reduction was subsequently
endorsed by all countries in the United Nations Millennium Declaration adopted
in September 2000....
...these priorities include the
national efforts to reach the Millennium Declaration goals....
Annex
Millennium
development goals
1.
As part of the preparation of the present report, consultations were held among
members of the United Nations Secretariat and representatives of IMF, OECD and
the World Bank in order to harmonize reporting on the development goals in the
Millennium Declaration and the international development goals....
2. The list of millennium development goals does not undercut in any way
agreements on other goals and targets reached at the global conferences of the
1990s...
[The Secretary-General misled.The MDGs clearly do undercut the 1996 World
Food Summit target, and perhaps others such as that promising clean water for
all by the year 2000.They also undercut
the Millennium Declaration.]
"For
the purpose of monitoring progress, the normal baseline year for the targets
will be 1990, which is the baseline that has been used by the global
conferences of the 1990s."
[The Secretary-General misled.Contrary to the FAO position in 2015, the
World Food Summit has a baseline of 1996 - as their own documents from the 1990s
show.]
"The
United Nations will report on progress towards the millennium development goals
at the global and country levels... "
Where
relevant, indicators should be calculated for subnational levels — i.e., by
urban and rural area, by region, by socio-economic group, and by age and
gender.
The
proposed formulation of the 8 goals, 18 targets and 40+ indicators are listed
below. ...
...between 1990 and 2015" [Relevant targets mention 1990 except for water, which states:]
"Target 10. Halve by 2015 the
proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water"
The MDG target is for around 4.3 million child deaths in 2015.
Why
does the official MDG list have no baseline for the water target?
Other
MDG targets have a 1990 baseline, but not the water target. Why?
The answer seems to be that the MDG target, asagreed, in facthas a 2000
baseline.
"Millennium
Development Goals...
The proposed formulation of the 8 goals, 18 targets and 40+ indicators are
listed below. ... ...the normal baseline year for the
targets will be 1990..." "proposedlist of goals, targets...listed
below...
…between 1990 and 2015…" [relevant targets
mention 1990 except for water target]
"OECD
MILLENIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS
(Note by the Secretariat)
17 September 2001
...Stafffrom the Secretariats of the UN (Secretary General’s Office and UNDG), IMF,
OECD-DAC, and the World Bank met in New York on 21 June 2001 to discuss
aligning the goals"
[MB note: That means:
a) civil servants' generally easier 1990-baseline International Development
Goals whose seven-goals-21-indicators structure and baseline were the basis of
the MDG framework,
and
b) the world leaders' 2000-baseline Declaration goals for 2015; there
were some other differences].
"In subsequent correspondence they reached agreementon a presentation of the Millennium
Development Goals (MDGs)...
It was agreed that there should be a standard baseline year of 1990
against which to measure progress (with an exception of using 2000
for the safe water goalas that was agreed in a recent UN
conference)."
"This
General Assembly was to have been dedicated to the goals of the millennium
declaration of last year. And in a sense, it certainly still is, because those
goals are, in our view, the antithesis of terrorism. They are freedom,
equality, solidarity, tolerance, shared responsibility for the world community.
Those are still the goals of the U.N. and certainly the goals of U.S. actions
within the U.N."
Background Briefing: United
Nations General Assembly Scenesetter
"The
General Assembly adopted resolution 56/192…on 21 December 2001. Reaffirming the Millennium Declaration goal of
reducing by half, between 2000 and
2015, the proportion of people who are unable to reach or to afford
safe drinking water, the Assembly welcomed…"
"The Millennium Development
Goal’s target for water and sanitation (MDG Target 10) aims to reduce by half
the number [!] of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and
basic sanitation by 2015, using 1990 as the baseline year. [!]
...there is no evidence that the
so-called “improved” technologies do provide safe water or adequate sanitation.
Moreover, the concept of safety and
reliability of water sources and of adequacy of sanitation facilities from a
user’s point of view, key to any analysis of the status of the water supply and
sanitation sector, have until now been overlooked in the monitoring process. In
some locations, for instance, an unprotected household well may provide a
better supply of water, both in terms of quantity and quality of water, than a
household connection that may be subject to intermittence and poor water
quality. The concept of sustainability (both in terms of service and
environment), present in the Target 10 definition, is not addressed by
indicators 30 and 31. Finally, affordability is only implied, but not clearly
stated.
b) Baseline date
The
definition of Target 10 does not explicitly provide for a baseline date against
which progress should be monitored. Although the MDGs were formulated in 2000 [!], and in spite of the
initial statement of UN Secretary General ( “Halve, by 2015,…” – [see above
section 1.2]), the baseline for the MDG target on water and sanitation, and for
most MDG targets in general, has been
set as 1990 22.
According to the French Water Academy,
who used 2000 as baseline year in its March 2004 report 23, selecting 1990 as
the baseline year is not, as could be thought, neutral and [perhaps the writers
mean "but"] less demanding: in fact it results in a decrease of the target for access to
water at global level from 91 per cent to 89.5 per cent in 2015 and of the
target for access to sanitation from 81 per cent to 77.5 per cent. …
22 JMP report, “Meeting the MDG
drinking water and sanitation target – A mid-term assessment of progress”,
2004.
23 Water Academy 2004, “The cost of
meeting the Johannesburg targets for drinking water”, by Henri Smets. "
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
Meeting the Millennium Development Goal Drinking Water and Sanitation Target in
the EECCA region:a goal within reach ?
Financing water supply and sanitation in EECCA
Conference of EECCA Ministers of Economy/Finance, Environment and Water and
their partners from the OECD
17-18 November 2005, Yerevan, Armenia http://www.oecd.org/environment/outreach/35372500.pdf
………………………………………………………….
"We,
the grown-ups, must reverse this list of failures. And we are pledged to do so. The very rights I described for you
are part of the promises made in the Millennium Declaration--
a list of pledges agreed by all the leaders of the world. They promised that,
by the year 2015, we will have cut by half the number of people living on less
than one dollar a day. ...
This gathering of the General Assembly is a reminder that these were promises made to you, the next generation."
Reaffirming the importance of
the implementation of and follow-up to the Millennium
Declaration in a comprehensive…manner…
Recognizes the uneven progress made so far in achieving the objectives agreed
upon in the Millennium Declaration,
and urges Member States to
continue to undertake with determination
appropriate measures towards its
implementation; …
Invites the organizations and agencies…and encourages
other interested parties…to continue to pursue vigorously the achievement of the objectives and goals contained in the Millennium Declaration…"
Reaffirming also that…major United
Nations conferences and summits should be viewed as interlinked and contributing to an integrated frame work
for the implementation of the internationally agreed development goals,
including those contained in the Millennium Declaration, and to a global
partnership for development"
Resolution 57/270
23 December 2003:
"The General Assembly...
Reaffirming the United Nations Millennium
Declaration...
Recognizes that a substantial increase in official development assistance and
other resources will be required if developing countries are to achieve the
internationally agreed development goals and objectives, including those
contained in the United Nations Millennium Declaration...
Encourages the international community, the United Nations system, the
private sector and civil society to continue to provide the necessary financial resources to
assist national Governments in their efforts to meet the development targets and benchmarks agreed upon at the World Summit
for Social Development, the Fourth World Conference on Women, the International
Conference on Population and Development, the Millennium Summit..."
2005:
"We, Heads of State and
Government...reaffirm the
Millennium Declaration…
Westrongly reiterate ourdeterminationto ensure the timely and full
realization of the development goals and objectives
agreed at the major United
Nations conferences and summits, including
those agreed at the Millennium Summit
that are described as the Millennium
Development Goals"[?]
"Let us resolve therefore: - To halve, by the time this century is 15 years old, the
proportion of the world’s people (currently 22 per cent)
whose income is less than one dollar a day.
- To halve, by the same date, the proportion of people (currently 20 per cent)
who are unable to reach, or to afford, safe drinking water."
"Specifically, I urge the Summit to
adopt the target of reducing by half,
between now and 2015,
the proportion of people who lack sustainable access to adequate sources of
affordable and safe water."
Secretary-General Millennium Report 27 March 2000
www.un.org/en/events/pastevents/pdfs/We_The_Peoples.pdf
"The Foreign and Commonwealth Office
has worked hard to build international support for the UNSecretary-General's
proposalsfor the Millennium Summit."
"The Clinton Administration strongly supports Secretary General
Kofi Annan's call to action on poverty alleviation, on economic and social
development"
"His Millennium Report...offers concrete, accomplishable and
far-sighted recommendations. Austria
welcomes this roadmap for the future course of UN activities and will follow its guidelines."
Several speakers directly endorsed the Secretary-General's Millennium Report,
which has a 2000 baseline:
"Let us resolve therefore:
- To halve, by the time this century is 15 years old, the proportion
of the world’s people (currently 22 per cent) whose income is less than
one dollar a day.
- To halve, by the same date, the proportion of people (currently 20 per cent)
who are unable to reach, or to afford, safe drinking water. …
Specifically, I urge the Summit to adopt the target of reducing by half, between
now and 2015, the proportion of people who lack sustainable access to
adequate sources of affordable and safe water."
"...Millennium Report serves as an excellent reference for checking
whether our homework has been properly done."
Mr Persson, Prime Minister of Sweden
"Secretary-General...the report he
presented...sets out clear and
precise objectives. Belgium fully supports it. My country commits itself ...to support all
actions that can help attain those objectives"
"I am pleased that the Declaration we are about to adopt at this Summit
has such a broad range of commitments, and the specificity of the language and thetime scales mean
that we can and will be held accountable for delivery."
Bertie Ahern, Prime Minister of Ireland 6 September 2000
"...let us be honest at this
Millennium Summit, too many times we
have set new deadlines to reach old goals."
"we must
overcome poverty.... It would be unforgivable if we
do not gather the means to do it. We
heartily support the objectives set out to this end in the Secretary-General’s report for the Millennium Summit..."
Spain
"The
Co-Chairperson (Finland): I now give the floor to the Chairman of the round
table held yesterday afternoon...
President Chávez Frías ( spoke in Spanish ): ...round table with heads of
State, representatives of Governments of America, Asia, Africa, Europe and
Oceania. ...we spent about four hours there...
I am going to make a major effort in these first few minutes to reflect the
spirit that prevailed...
My
colleagues and I agree on one
question based on the
deliberations we are witnessing here and onthe excellent report submitted by the
Secretary-General to guide us at this Millennium Summit. How
can the goals determined there be met? ...
Let us
inform our peoples about what
was discussed here, about the conclusions
that were drawn in this Summit..."
"This Summit embodies the commitment of the world's political
leaders to strengthen the foundations of the United Nations…
In the international arena, there is no alternative to strong, multilateral
institutions based on impeccable
democratic legitimacy. Decisions and procedures must be transparent.
Civil society must be more directly involved."
Romano Prodi
President of the European Commission
8 September 2000
"We resolve...by the year
2015...to have reduced maternal mortality
by three-quarters, and child mortality by two thirds, of...current rates"
[to about 3.6 million child deaths
in 2015, or 10,000 deaths a day]
"The
Co-Chairperson (Namibia): We have come to the close of this historic Millennium
Summit...
We cannot,
therefore, afford to go back home from here and continue business as usual. We, as heads of State or Government, have the mandate
and the responsibility individually and collectively to take bold steps....
We must act now by translating our commitments into action. It is time to
combine our vision and our renewed commitment with the increased resources for
the United Nations in a purposeful manner....
"I ...
call upon [the new President of the General Assembly, Harri Holkeri] to ensure
the implementation of the Millennium Declaration and pay particular attention
to paragraph 31."
Paragraph 31 of the Millennium Declaration reads:
"We request the General Assembly to review on a regular
basis the progress made in implementing the provisions of this
Declaration..."
"...the Summit is a unique, symbolic moment. The Summit Declaration
...will guide our work....for years to come. …
The Declaration will constitute an authoritative mandate for our work.…
It will be the responsibility of the General Assembly to...put into practice
the political commitment of our Heads of State or Government. The General
Assembly and its Main Committees ...must reflect the results of the Summit in
their work. We need to avoid a business as-usual mentality."
Harri Holkeri, President of the General Assembly at its fifty-fifth session
………………………………………………………………………………
Nations supported 2000 baselines in
following years:
"Remarks
by Secretary of State Colin L. Powell at World Summit on Sustainable Development
September 4, 2002
Here in Johannesburg, we have recommitted ourselves to achieving, by 2015, the
development goals set forth in the Millennium Declaration."
2005: "We, Heads of State and
Government...reaffirm the Millennium
Declaration…
Westrongly reiterate our determination to ensure the timely and
full realization of the development goals
and objectives agreed at the
major United Nations conferences and summits,
including those agreed at the Millennium
Summit that are described as the Millennium Development
Goals"[?]
"In a little over two months our heads of state and government will
review progress against their Millennium
Declaration commitments....
The EU welcomes this year’s
coordination segment theme - “Towards achieving the internationally agreed
development goals, including those contained in the Millennium Declaration” –
which focuses on how UN system coordination can contribute to these broad objectives
in 2005 and beyond. ...
The
European Union is strongly committed to the implementation of the outcomes of the conferences in the economic,
social, environmental and related fields, and in particular to the Millennium Declaration and the
achievement of the MDGs...
We underline the link between achieving the MDGs and reaffirming and implementing these outcomes, including those
set out in the Millennium Declaration
and those from Beijing, Copenhagen, Cairo, Istanbul, Monterrey, Vienna,
Johannesburg, Rome, as well
as Brussels, Almaty and Mauritius."
EU Presidency Statement – ECOSOC Co-ordination Segment:
Towards achieving internationally agreed development goals, including those
contained in the Millennium Declaration
July 6, 2005 http://eu-un.europa.eu/articles/en/article_4864_en.htm
"The EU Sustainable Development
Strategy (EU SDS) (Council of the
European Union, 2006) ...objective is ‘to ...ensure that...policies are
consistent with...its international commitments’.
...the EU SDS sets out...:
Make significant progress towards
meeting the commitments of
the EU with regard to internationally agreed goals and targets, in particular those contained in
the Millennium Declaration
..."
"We need to work with our
partners to increase access to energy if we are to support the achievement of
the goals agreed at the Millennium Summit in 2000."
Asian Development Bank Independent Evaluation
Department 2013:
"The
Millennium Declaration of 2000….In the following year, the development goals
were slightly amended and
expanded into a single list called the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). …
The UN General Assembly only embraced
the separate list of eight MDGs as late as...2005."
MB note:But the US claimed that the
wording meant the Declaration's goals.
"The
General Assembly focus has always been on calling for implementation and monitoring of all the goals and
measures in the broader Millennium
Declaration framework."
"...the OECD’s International
Development Goals (IDGs) in 1996, whose targets were expanded to become the
MDGs."
"concerns have been raised as to the formulation and implementation of
MDGs from a human rights perspective, particularly as the MDGs were decoupled
from the broader agenda encapsulated in the Millennium Declaration. It has been queried whether the MDGs
have lowered human rights standards in some instances:
for instance, Goal 2 does not require
primary education to be free, contrary to the near-universally ratified
Convention on the Rights of the Child; andthe goal of ‘fair trade’ in the Millennium Declaration was reduced to ‘free
trade’ in the MDGs.
Furthermore, most of the quantitative targets are likely to be lower than minimum
human rights standards in the case of middle income countries. This can
be discerned in the seemingly triumphant tone of national MDG reports of some
of these countries when they report on meeting the goals."
Human Rights and MDGs in Practice:
A review of country strategies and reporting "This report is based on a global
analytical paper commissioned by the Office of the United Nations High
Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) from Malcolm Langford, Norwegian Centre
for Human Rights, University of Oslo. The views expressed in this paper do not
necessarily represent those of OHCHR, UNICEF or the United Nations." http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/MDGs/Human_rights_and_MDGs_in_practice_ML.pdf
MB note: It is questionable whether goals to
"halve" hunger or extreme poverty meet internationally agreed human
rights standards - rights to life, food.
"The Millennium Development Goals
(MDGs) emerged in 2001 as a compromise
between the IDGs and the Millennium Declaration, with a view to
avoiding separate development agendas. While the IDGs essentially became the basis for the MDGs…"
In 2001 the General Assembly endorsed the 2000 baseline, not the easier
MDG targets
Some people think UN member states adopted the MDGs in 2001.In fact they reaffirmed the 2000-baseline
Declaration.
In a resolution of 14 December 2001, the General Assembly welcomed the
Secretary-General's Road Map, which contained among other things the
1990-baseline MDG structure.But the
Assembly did not say which parts of the report it agreed with, or whether it
welcomed the different baseline.
In the same resolution of 2001 member states
called for more publicity for the 2000-baseline Declaration, which they
reaffirmed the next week and in later years. But even if it had specifically
endorsed the new baseline, it was still bound by the more ambitious pledges.
The following statement that the MDGs were not formally endorsed
is correct, at least up to September 2005 (and perhaps beyond, since the US
claimed that the 2005 wording in fact referred to the Declaration's goals), but
the second part is not correct:
"as Manning (2010) notes, the MDGs are not formally endorsed by the UN
membership, but described as ‘a useful guide’".
What the UN members mentioned in the relevant
resolution, 56/95 of 14 December 2001, was not the MDGs but the 58-page report
containing among other proposals an Annex proposing them.
They did not say which part or parts they considered a "useful guide"
or were for the Secretary-General to "draw on" for his reports.
Far from describing the 1990-baseline targets as a "useful guide" the
General Assembly in the same
resolution of 2001 called for increased publicity for the 2000-baseline
Declaration, and reaffirmed
the Declaration on 21 December 2001.
The authors misquote Mr Manning, who was
referring to the annex containing the MDGs.
Richard Manning is a former UK Department for
International Development Director-General.His 2010 version is not correct either:
"(MDGs), of which the authoritative version was contained in an Annex to a
‘Road Map’ produced by the Secretary-General in September 2001...
the Annex to the ‘Road Map’ was not
formally endorsed by the UN membership, but merely described as ‘a useful
guide’in the relevant Resolution"
The General Assembly in the
resolution of 14 December 2001 recommended the 58-page "Road Map" as
a useful guide.
It did not mention, as Richard Manning
claims, the Annex containing the MDG framework.
The 2001 resolution did not mention the MDGs, as some academics have
claimed.The Assembly did not make clear
whether it was referring to the MDGs as a useful guide, or other parts of the
report.
"…despite this less than robust formal basis, there
can be no doubt that the MDGs have become highly influential at least at the
level of international discourse about development."
Mr Manning wrote correctly in 2009 that it was
the 58-page Road Map as a whole which the Assembly mentioned:
"The
results of this exercise, a framework containing 8 Goals, 18 Targets and 48
Indicators, were annexed to the Secretary-General’s Road Map of 2001. This list
became the authoritative statement of the MDG framework, despite the fact that,
ironically, it was never endorsed as such by the General Assembly, not least
because of both US and G77 reservations (from different perspectives)
about aspects of Goal Eight. Instead the relevant resolution, though adopted
without a vote, recommended that the Secretary-General’s report ‘Road map
towards the implementation of the United Nations Millennium Declaration’ be
considered ‘a useful guide’ …"
"The Millennium Declaration was
not entirely clear about base year."
Elsewhere in the same article he quotes the Declaration twice as stating
that the mortality reductions are to be from "current rates".
This, together with other information such as the Secretary-General's
proposals to the Summit and the leaders' speeches - and frankly common sense
-would indicate a 2000 baseline.
On 14/17 September 2001 - after the Secretary-General had produced his Road
Map, the OECD Secretariat said in its report about the outcome of the group of
MDG architects that even the MDG target for water had a 2000 baseline.
In October 2001 UN development agencies agreed guidance notes for country
reporting, which stated that the text of the Declaration "would
imply" a 2000 baseline.
Mr Manning continues:
"The designers of the Annex to the Road-Map [which contained the
proposed MDG framework] decided on 1990
for purposes of consistency and feasibility."
In
isolation, this passage would contribute to the misleading impression about
baselines:
"As part of the preparation of the
Road Map, a group of staff from the
UN (Secretariat, Funds and Programmes, and several Specialised Agencies), OECD,
IMF and World Bank, slightly expanded from that which had drafted the ‘Better
World for All’ document, reconvened in June to July 2001 under the chairmanship
of Michael Doyle from the UN Secretary General’s Office. Its task was to agree a set of goals that would highlight key
commitments in the Millennium Declaration[!] that could
be quantified, and for which there were established indicators for which
reasonable data existed."
The idea
that the task of the MDG architects was to simply "highlight key commitments in the Millennium Declaration"
is a fantasy repeated, for example, in the BBC fact-checking programme
"More or Less" on 3 July 2015.
The BBC
removed the audio file from its website without explanation, in an apparent
breach of its guidelines.It is
available here:
The
task given was actually to "harmonise" the seven 1990-baseline
International Development Goals, originally formulated as six goals by the OECD
in 1996, with the Millennium Declaration.
That is one reason why the group was, as Mr Manning says, expanded from that
which had drafted the "Better World for All" document.That document contained the seven
1990-baseline goals.
The OECD stated in September 2001 that the MDGs contained 20 of the 21 targets
from the IDGs.
Leaders did mention MDGs at the 2005 World Summit.
But a) the US claimed this meant the Declaration's goals, and
b) leaders at the same time specifically reaffirmed the Declaration's more
ambitious commitments.
It is not clear why people who know
the difference might write about the MDG framework with easier targets rather
than what leaders actually pledged.
The error that the UN membership mentioned the MDGs as a "useful
guide" appears also in the following.It in addition strangely refers to the Declaration
"consisting" of six values rather than as including both them and
specific time-bound commitments.
"The broader Millennium Declaration (that all UN Member States agreed to)
consists of six ‘fundamental values’ (some of which are only partially
represented in the MDGs): freedom, equality, solidarity, tolerance, respect for
nature, and shared responsibility.
...The MDGs (which are not formally
endorsed by the UN membership but described as ‘a useful guide’) were produced
by the UN Secretary General in 2001 and updated in 2005…"
EADI Policy Paper Series
The MDGs and beyond: pro-poor policy in a changing world
Andrew Sumner and Thomas Lawo
With inputs from Tom Mitchell, Andreas Rechkemmer, Chetna Desai, Giulia Frontini,
Ben Mann, Richard Mallet, Ricardo Santos, Aislinn Delany
European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes
March 2010 http://www.slideshare.net/andrewwilliamsjr/eadi-policy-papermarch2010
Similarly, this is not correct:
"Welcomed as a useful guide, the MDGs..."
The UN had not in the relevant resolution of 2001 mentioned MDGs
themselves as a "useful guide".
"...were not formally endorsed by
the General Assembly until 2005 (Manning, 2009; Hulme, 2010: 19; Manning, 2010;
Sumner and Lawo, 2010; Langford, Sumner and Yamin, 2013)…"
On the day of that announcement, the US Government published a statement by Assistant
Secretary of State Silverberg, that the document would not endorsing the MDGs
but referring through that phrase to the goals of the Millennium Declaration.
"By the time the MDGs were
finally endorsed..."
[ditto],
"...the initial framework had evolved…to 8 goals, 21 targets and 60
indicators. They were distilled from the resolutions of 23 international
conferences and summits held between 1990 and 2005."
[not perhaps clear enough, since for example the 1996 World Food Summit, as
Pogge has written, has a 1996 baseline and a more ambitious target to halve the
number of hungry people rather than the proportion.]
In the following article, it is not completely clear that the words
"consequently the MDGs [were] welcomed as a useful guide" are
entailed by the text of the resolution - especially if we take into account the
concept of diplomatic language in UN resolutions:
"Annexed
to the report was a ‘Road Map’
that contained the initial MDG framework, which at that time comprised 8 Goals,
18 Targets and 48 Indicators. The Road Map – and consequently the MDGs –
was welcomed as ‘a useful guide’…."
Nicole Rippin Progress, Prospects and
Lessons from
the MDGs
Background Research
Paper for the Report of the High Level Panel on
"On behalf of Canada I would like
to voice strong support for the Monterrey Consensus.
A consensus that is unprecedented in scope and participation.
That seeks to take an indispensable step forward together in securing a
fundamental common cause of the United Nations. As expressed in the Millennium
Declaration."
Monterrey,
Mexico March 2002
"To achieve the aims of the
Millennium Summit, the World Bank estimates it will be necessary to
double the amount currently spent on poverty eradication."
"We [the European Community] are conscious of the absolute moral
imperative of combating the extreme poverty suffered by one fifth of humanity
and we have fully endorsed
the historic development goals
written into the Millennium
Declaration.
We know that in order to attain these objectives it is necessary...."
European Community
Romano Prodi
President of the European Commission at the International Conference on
Financing for Development
Monterrey, Mexico
March 22, 2002 http://www.un.org/ffd/statements/ecE.htm
"Something must be done to galvanize
the global political will for an accelerated drive to meet the Millennium Declaration targets. …
I am convinced that the UN Millennium
Declarationpoints
the way forward."
Han Seung-soo
President of the General Assembly of the United Nations
International Conference on Financing For Development, Monterrey, Mexico
March 2002 http://www.un.org/ffd/statements/gaunE.htm
Even if the MDGs had been formally endorsed in 2001 or 2002, that would not
alter the commitment to the more ambitious pledges.
Pogge and
Rippin write,
"In an attempt to nevertheless ‘create the semblance of consensus’
(Vandemoortele, 2011b: 5), member states deliberately omitted the specification
of the baseline and, in consequence, the level of aspiration."
Did they deliberately omit the baseline?A President's Draft of the Millennium Declaration is available from
non-UN sources, which refers to baselines - besides those on mortality - which
clearly relate to 2000.
Jan Vandemoortele co-chaired the group negotiating the MDG framework.The group chose easier targets than leaders
had actually pledged.Following its
decisions the UN began falsely claiming in the official MDG list that the
easier targets were "from the Millennium Declaration".
His position is that the baseline was not clear in the Declaration.
But his version omits
a) nations' support, quoted elsewhere in the present document, for the
Secretary-General's proposals to the Summit, which clearly do have a 2000
baseline for money and water,
b) other evidence cited in the present document,
and not least a common-sense argument:
c) the fact that the meaning of a pledge – as I explained in response to an FAO
statistician in 2015 – is not in the mind of the person giving it, but in the
perception of people who hear of it.
If I tell you I will double your salary, you would be reasonable in saying I
was deceitful if I later said I meant from ten years ago.
Pogge and Rippin write,
"The baseline year 1990 was finally
set [by] the IAEG when formulating the MDGs"
The group was not called the IAEG (Inter-Agency and Expert Group) at the
time.In fact it was so informal that it
seems there are no public records of its procedures.
Perhaps the only contemporary account of what the group did is the OECD report
from September 2001 which states that the group agreed the water target has a
2000 baseline.
A draft chapter for the UN
"flagship" publication World Economic and Social Survey: MDG Lessons
for Post-2015 is thoroughly confused on the Declaration and the MDGs.
It ignores the baseline difference - written about for many years by Thomas
Pogge - completely, while using pompous, authoritative-sounding legalistic
language.
It strangely claims that the goals were lifted "verbatim" from the
Declaration.
It ignores other evidence, including from the resolution which the draft
implies "approved" the MDGs, that the General Assembly actually
endorsed and reaffirmed the Declaration.
The main page for the drafts wrongly states:
"In September 2000, world leaders came together at the United
Nations Headquarters in New York to adopt the Millennium Declaration,
committing their nations to a new global partnership to reduce extreme poverty
and setting out a series of
time-bound targets—with a deadline of 2015—that have become known [!] as the Millennium Development Goals "
The passage says that leaders "committed"
to a partnership but strangely, only that leaders "set out" time-bound targets.
In reality leaders did not merely "set out", but were
"committed" to the targets, and these were more ambitious
than those "known as the MDGs".
The authors write:
"The United Nations Millennium Declaration …which
followed in the footsteps of the report entitled “We the peoples”, in terms of
its expansiveness, included sections on…The section on development and poverty
eradication contained the following
list of time-bound targets:"
Here again material for the proposed "flagship" UN reportfails to note that leaders
"resolved" to achieve these targets.They did notsimply adopt a declaration "containing" a
"list".The authors continue:
"• To halve, by the year 2015, the
proportion of the world’s people whose income is less than a dollar a day and
the proportion of people who suffer from hunger and, by the same date, to halve
the proportion of people who are unable to reach or to afford safe drinking
water….
• By the same date, to have reduced
maternal mortality by three quarters, and under-five child mortality by two
thirds, of their current rates.
…
This list clearly reflects several of
the IDGs set out in the report entitled “A better world for all”.
[The IDGs have the easier 1990 baseline, but the draft UN "flagship"
report fails to note the difference]
"In paragraph 31 of the United Nations Millennium Declaration, the General
Assembly was requested to review on a regular basis the progress made in
implementing the provisions of the Declaration, and to ask the
Secretary-General to issue periodic reports for consideration by the Assembly
and as a basis for further action. The report of the Secretary-General on the
road map towards the implementation of the United Nations Millennium
Declaration (United Nations, General Assembly, 2001) was issued on 6 September
2001 pursuant to that request. The annex to the report contained MDGs, formulated based on the targets
given directly above."[!]
[The statement that the MDG targets were "formulated based on
the targets given directly above" is at best confused and may
mislead.
The targets "given ...above" do not have the easier MDGs baseline but
instead include two from "current rates".
The MDG targets were formulated largely based on the IDG targets with 1990 baselines, rather than simply on the Declaration
"targets given directly above".]
"Issues of omission and
commission
The critical comments can be divided
into two broad groups: one focusing on omissions and the other on acts of
commission.
With regard to omissions, some
commentators noted that while the United Nations Millennium Declaration was
wide-ranging, covering many different areas, the MDGs were focused on only one section of the Declaration,
namely, that entitled “Development and poverty eradication” (sect. III),
thereby neglecting the issues of peace, security and disarmament; protecting
our common environment; and human rights, democracy and good governance, among
others. Many thought that, even within the area of development and poverty
eradication, some important issues were omitted, such as reproductive health
rights, employment and job opportunities, access to secondary and tertiary
education, and equality of opportunities and outcome (Manning, 2009; Rippin,
2013; Fukuda-Parr, 2010; and Fehling, Nelson and Venkatapuram, 2013).7
Regarding flaws of commission, some
observers were unhappy with the use of the $1/day measure of poverty, finding
it to be too narrow and/or too low. Some were puzzled by the decision to
specify some MDGs in the form of proportions while expressing others in terms
of absolute numbers (Saith, 2006; 2007).
[This draft for the “flagship” UN report
entirely omits Pogge’s observation that some well-known MDG targets are easier
than the Declaration pledges]
Along similar lines, some commentators asked why the end point for some MDGs
was 2020, while for most others it was 2015. Many questioned why some targets
were left quantitatively unspecified (under, for example, MDGs 7 and 8), while
the other MDGs and associated targets were quantitatively specified. Many
thought that a focus on social sectors would divert resources away from more
productive sectors (Manning, 2009; Rippin, 2013; Fehling, Nelson and
Venkatapuram, 2013; and Nayyar, 2012).
There were procedural questions, too.
Some noted that the MDGs were introduced in the annex to a report of the
Secretary-General (on the road map towards the implementation of the United
Nations Millennium Declaration) instead of being formally set out and discussed
and adopted by the General Assembly (Rippin, 2013).
In response to the above criticisms,
it has been pointed out that the MDGs
were taken verbatim [!]
[UN draft misleads- the targets were in
fact different]
from the United Nations Millennium Declaration, which was discussed and adopted at
the Millennium Summit, so that another round including discussions and adoption
was not necessary. Further, since the General Assembly, in its resolution 56/95
of 14 December took note with appreciation of the report of the
Secretary-General on the road map, including
the annex thereto,
[! – the resolution said nothing
about the annex containing the MDGs]
and recommended that the road map
be considered a useful guide in the implementation of the Millennium
Declaration by the United Nations system,
it was determined in consequence
that the MDGs had been
formally considered and
approved[?]by the Assembly."
"...it was noted that the intention in formulating the MDGs was to create
a small set of precise and measurable goals on which the international
community could focus. The aspirations expressed in sections of the Millennium
Declaration other than that on development and poverty eradication were generally
not measurable, at least not to everybody’s satisfaction. Also, only goals already included in the
Millennium Declaration (and on which consensus among the States Members
of the United Nations had been achieved) could
be included in the MDGs"
It is not clear what the phrase "it was determined" means.
There is no problem if states wish
to claim that they are committed to, or approved, additional pledges.
However, to refer to MDG targets as the global targets agreed by the UN,
would be ignorant or dishonest.Member states in fact reaffirmed the more ambitious pledges in 2001 and
later years.
The statement that only goals in
the Declaration could be in the MDGs makes little sense.
The MDG targets with 1990 baselines are not in the Declaration.The strange statement seems to tie in with
the error that the targets were lifted "verbatim" – a word used by
Jan Vandemoortele - from the Declaration.
Given that an OECD document appears to state that the MDG architects agreed a
2000 baseline for water, it is surprising that none of their or their
associates or interviewers' or historians' accounts – at least, those I know of
from Doyle, Vandemoortele, the UNDP, Malloch Brown, Annan, Fukuda-Parr, Hulme,
and so on -note this.
It is also puzzling that they do not note
the falsehood in the official MDG list that the easier MDG targets come from
the Declaration, or similar falsehoods from UNICEF, the WHO, the FAO, the
Secretary-General, governments and so on.
A 2015 report by the UN Development
Programme Independent Evaluation Office misleads.It repeats Jan Vandemoortele's strange claim
that the 1990-baseline MDG targets were taken "verbatim" from what
was clearly a 2000-baseline Declaration.
"DRAFTING
THE MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS
At
the following session, the United Nations General Assembly requested that “the
Secretary-General urgently prepare a long-term ‘roadmap’ towards the
implementation of the Millennium Declaration within the UN system.”44 An
inter-agency expert group was assembled under the co-chairmanship of Michael
Doyle (Special Assistant to the United Nations Secretary-General) and Jan
Vandemoortele (Head of the UNDP Poverty Group), consisting mainly of
statisticians and development economists from OECD/DAC, various UN agencies,
the World Bank and the IMF. The group met several times in the spring and
summer of 2001 to arrive at a short list of quantitative goals and targets that
could be used to monitor the implementation of the Millennium Declaration. In
the end, 18 of such targets were
taken out verbatim [!] from the agreed language of the Millennium
Declaration, assigned indicators and grouped under eight Millennium
Development Goals."
Evaluation of the role of UNDP in supporting
national achievement of the Millennium Development Goals
2015 "The analysis and recommendations of this report do not necessarily
reflect the views of the United Nations Development Programme, its Executive
Board or the United Nations Member States. This is an independent publication
by the Independent Evaluation Office.
Jayati Ghosh and Miguel Szekely, from the IEO External Advisory Panel, provided
excellent methodological and substantive advice and quality assessed the draft
report.
The evaluation was carried out with the invaluable assistance of UNDP staff at
headquarters and in the eleven case study countries. Their insight, knowledge,
advice and comments made this evaluation possible. " http://erc.undp.org/evaluationadmin/downloaddocument.html?docid=8657
The UNDP
evaluation document wrongly claims that the General Assembly "noted"
the MDGs in 2001, rather than the Road Map which talked of both MDGs
and meeting the Declaration commitments.
There was no such resolution in "September 2001".The resolution noting the Road Map was 56/95,
of 14 December 2001.
"The
considerations that presided over the selection of MDGs and their targets from
those listed in the Millennium Declaration were mainly technical in nature and
related to measurability, although the process was not devoid of political
considerations. Good governance and democratization, while mentioned in the
declaration, were deemed likely to dampen some nations’ enthusiasm towards the
MDGs and were thus not included among them."
In
the end, the MDGs were quite recognizably similar to the OECD-defined set of
goals, except Goal 6 focused on HIV/AIDS instead of reproductive health, and
Goal 8 was added about development cooperation.The result was articulated in the Secretary-General’s ‘Road Map towards
the Implementation of the United Nations Millennium Declaration’, which
enumerated the newly coined MDGs in an appendix. When the ‘Road Map’ was
presented to the September 2001 General Assembly, the MDGs[!]were merely noted as
useful guidance"
MB note: Not true.The Assembly noted the 58-page report, not
the parts containing the MDGs.
"rather
than officially approved. It was only four years later, at the 2005 General
Assembly meeting, that the MDGs were officially recognized in a declaration
adopted by the General Assembly."
MB note:But see the statement by the US
Assistant Secretary of Stateof September 2005, that the wording meant
the Declaration and not Annan's "MDGs".
"Meanwhile, the G‐77 and the European Union
had formally welcomed the MDGs at various meetings and expressed their
willingness to endorse them."
See below.
" Irrespective of the language, the September[?]2001 General Assembly ‘noting’ of the MDGs... "
[MB: Again, not true. The Assembly noted the 58-page report, not the parts
containing the MDGs.]
"...signalled that a consensus had been reached and brought an end
to decades of negotiation and bargaining over the international development
agenda."
"not even formally approved until 2005, the MDGs..."
See above on the US position.
The UNDP evaluation report says
"the G‐77 and the European Union had formally welcomed
the MDGs at various meetings and expressed their willingness to endorse
them".
But the EU said in 2015 that it
was strongly committed to the Declaration, and G-77 foreign ministers, like the
General Assembly, reaffirmed the Declaration in 2003 and 2013:
"the
[2015 Summit] declaration needs
to show the international community's resolve
to fulfil the promise of the Millennium Declarationand Rio+20, completing
and building on the unfinished business of the MDGs."
17
February 2015, New York
Statement on behalf of the European Union and its Member States
delivered by Mr. Gustavo Martin Prada, Director EU Development Policy -
DG DEVCO, European Commission,
at the United Nations Post-2015 Intergovernmental Negotiations http://eu-un.europa.eu/articles/en/article_16119_en.htm
2003:
"We, the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the Group of 77 and China...at
the United Nations Headquarters in New York on 25 September 2003, adopted the
following declaration: ... We reaffirm
our commitment to the Millennium Declaration and call upon the international
community to fully and speedily implement the provisions set out therein and in other major United Nations conferences and summits"
"We welcome the adoption of
General Assembly resolution 58/291 of 6 May 2004 on the integrated and
coordinated implementation of and follow-up to the outcomes of the major UN
conferences and summits in the economic and social fields, which decided to
convene in New York in 2005, a High-level plenary meeting to undertake a
comprehensive review of the
progress made in the fulfillment of
all the commitments contained in the Millennium Declaration, including
the internationally agreed development goals and the global partnership
required for their achievement. "
"The Group of 77 is determined to work
actively for the success of the high-level plenary meeting to be held
at the...General Assembly, in 2005... to review
progress made in the fulfillment of all the commitments made in
the United Nations Millennium
Declaration"
Our leaders agreed upon some common goals which have been clearly articulated
in the outcome documents of various UN conferences
and summits including the Millennium Summit. And all our leaders agreed that those common goals must be achieved.
...
Regrettably, the report on the implementation of the
Millennium Declaration points out that many of us are being left far behind and
to those countries, these common goals are becoming increasingly distant....
...the
Millennium Declaration must be implemented in its entirety....
The Millennium Declaration is no doubt important,
but equally important are the outcomes of other UN conferences and summits. ...
The realization of the goals of the Millennium
Declaration have gained increasing importance..."
Statement on
behalf of the Group of 77 and China
Integrated and Coordinated Implementation of and follow-up to the Outcomes of
the Major United Nations Conferences and Summits in the Economic, Social and
Related Fields
Implementation of the United Nations Millennium Declaration,General Assembly Plenary
(New York, 22 November 2004) http://www.g77.org/Speeches/112204.htm
"G8 countries
have agreed on the following set of actions to encourage and support national policies
and programs that promote effective private sector-led development to help
alleviate poverty, thereby helping to achieve the international development goals of the Millennium Declaration."
Sea Island 2004
Official Website of the G8 presidency of the Russian Federation in 2006
The European Union was also, a year
after the MDGs were proposed, talking of the Declaration goals:
"On
behalf of the European Union...the world community still has far to go if we
are to meet the goals of the
Millennium Declaration.
For
many countries, the United Nations is
first and foremost about combating poverty. How to ensure everyone
access to the essentials of life; the next meal; the medicine and health care
to survive; and access to basic education. These are the promises contained in the Millennium Declaration. And we
must not let the world down."
Statement by H.E. Anders Fog Rasmussen
Prime Minister of Denmark on behalf of the European Union
Fifty-Seventh Session Of The General Assembly
General Debate
New York, 12 September 2002 http://www.un.org/webcast/ga/57/statements/020912denmarkE.htm
"Millennium Development Goals...
The proposed formulation of
the 8 goals, 18 targets and 40+ indicators are listed below. ... ...the normal baseline year for the
targets will be 1990..." "proposed list
of goals, targets...listed below...between
1990 and 2015" [relevant targets mention 1990 except for water target]
"OECD
MILLENIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS
(Note by the Secretariat)
17 September 2001
...Stafffrom the Secretariats of the UN (Secretary General’s Office and UNDG), IMF,
OECD-DAC, and the World Bank met in New York on 21 June 2001 to discuss
aligning the goals"
[MB note: That means:
a) civil servants' generally easier 1990-baseline International Development
Goals whose seven-goals-21-indicators structure and baseline were the basis of
the MDG framework,
and
b) the world leaders' 2000-baseline Declaration goals for 2015; there
were some other differences].
"In subsequent correspondence they reached agreementon a presentation of the Millennium
Development Goals (MDGs)...
It was agreed that there should be a standard baseline year of 1990
against which to measure progress (with an exception of using 2000
for the safe water goalas that was agreed in a recent UN
conference)."
On 6 November 2001 the heads of UNDP, UNICEF, WFP and UNFPA announced to
UN country representatives,
"The International Development Goals
(IDGs) and the development goals contained in the Millennium Declaration have
recently been merged under the designation of "Millennium Development
Goals" (MDGs). They have been agreed by the United Nations system, World
Bank, International Monetary Fund, and OECD/DAC."
The heads of UN agencies attached a guidance note for country reporting.
This stated that the text of the Declaration "would imply" a baseline
of 2000 for both the mortality and other relevant pledges.
"The
Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)…
For the purpose of monitoring progress, the normal baseline year for the
targets will be 1990... ...the Secretary-General istoreportannually
to the General Assembly on progress towards a sub-set of the MDGs…"
"Baseline year – 1990 or 2000?
...In two cases - maternal mortality and under-five mortality - the term
"current rates" is used, directly
specifying a 2000 baseline. For the remainder, the targets are stated
in the form of "to halve by 2015…" This would imply a 2000
baseline year of the Millennium Declaration. After discussions within
the UN system and with other partners, the issues have been resolved in favour
of 1990 serving as the baseline year."
In 2001 the
General Assembly did not say it "adopted" the new targets.
It recommended
"that the "road map" be
considered as a useful guide in the implementation of the Millennium
Declaration".
At the same time it requested
"the
Secretary-General to prepare an annual
report and a comprehensive report every five years on progress...towards
implementing the Millennium Declaration, drawing upon the "road map"
map” and in accordance with resolution 55/162...while the quinquennial
comprehensive reports examine progress
achieved towards implementing all the commitments made in the
Declaration".
It looks like member states were asking the Secretary-General to report not
just on the generally easier MDG4 and MDG5 but on their pledges of 2000.
This interpretation is boosted by the fact that they at the same time
invited
"specific
measures to give widespread publicity to the Millennium Declaration".
"The General Assembly…requests the
Secretary-General to prepare a comprehensive report every five years,
supplemented by an annual report on progress achieved towards implementing the
Millennium Declaration...
(a) The annual reports should reflect
the broad array of specific goals and commitmentsenunciatedin the Millennium
Declaration…
(b) All reports should focus, in this
respect, on the results and benchmarksachieved, identify gaps in implementation….
OECD Ministers reaffirm Millennium and
Monterrey development commitments
...OECD Ministers meeting in Paris
have reasserted their countries’ commitments to the Millennium Declaration and
the Monterrey Consensus on development....
But the OECD countries also emphasise the responsibilities of individual
countries for their economic and social development. “Sound macro-economic
policies, good governance based on solid
democratic institutions and accountability responsive to the needs of
the people …” their statement says.
Corruption is a major impediment to development and
investment, the OECD countries warn. In their statement, they pledge to help
developing countries build effective anti-bribery systems. But they also insist
that increased aid must be accompanied by more effective use, and that aid
programmes must be monitored and measured for their effectiveness. ...
ENABLING DEVELOPMENT
OECD statement to the follow-up of the
UN Millennium Declaration and
Monterrey Consensus
1. We, Ministers of OECD countries,
gathered at the OECD Ministerial Council Meeting on 3-4 May 2005 in Paris, reaffirm our strong commitment to
the implementation of the Millennium Declaration and the Monterrey Consensus
and for achieving the internationally
agreed development goals, including those contained in the Millennium
Declaration (MDGs)."[?]
"We are faced with unique opportunities and
responsibilities over the coming months. We should be excited by the emerging
Sustainable Development Goals. They have the potential to rekindle the spirit
of solidarity that underpinned the
Millennium Declaration. We have a collective responsibility to deliver on our promises"
[!]
Note:The General Assembly asked the
Secretary-General in 2000 and 2001 to report on progress on the Millennium
Declaration commitments.Instead, he and
Mr Ban reported on the easier MDGs.Mr
Ban's 2015 Report on the Work of the Organization entirely omits the Millennium
Declaration and Millennium Summit.
National leaders did not make any explicit statement at the UN on
"MDGs" until September 2005, and even then the US claimed that this
mean the Declaration's goals.
The USA in 2005 emphasised that the MDG framework was "solely a
Secretariat product" and not formally endorsed by the UN membership.
For example:
pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/PCAAB560.pdf
Another example:
"The
U.S. stands by its commitment to the goals in the Millennium Declaration. The President has said so specifically.
This is an important commitment we made and, of course, we remain committed to
it.
Separate from the Millennium Declaration, the UN Secretariat created a document
that provides a number of indicators, ways to measure, ways the UN Secretariat
thinks would be appropriate to measure progress towards those goals. Some of
them we agree with, some of them we don't agree with. The U.S. never signed onto it. Other member-states didn't sign onto
it. So we try to be very precise when we're talking about the
Millennium Declaration to say we
support the goals in the Millennium Declaration that were subject to
U.S. agreement."
Kristen Silverberg, Assistant Secretary of State for
International Organization Affairs On-The-Record Briefing Washington, DC August 31, 2005 2001-2009.state.gov/p/io/rls/rm/52382.htm
Heads of State and Government and High Representatives,
25 September 2015:
"...Follow-up to the outcome of
the[2000-baseline] Millennium Summit...
The new Agenda is…grounded in…the [2000-baseline]Millennium Declaration…
"We…reaffirm the outcomes of all major United Nations
conferences and summits…
[which includes the 2000-baseline Millennium Declaration and the more
ambitious pledge of 1996 to halve the number, not just the proportion, of
hungry people by 2015]
Almost 15 years ago, the [1990-baseline]Millennium Development Goals [!] were agreed."
[! - Untrue and misleading.In fact what was agreed "almost 15 years
ago" was the more ambitious 2000-baseline Declaration.]
"We, the Heads of State and
Government and heads of delegation...
reaffirm our commitment to the Millennium
Declaration...
and the outcomes of all the
major UN conferences and summits in the economic, social, and
environmental fields."
"We, the Heads of State and Government of...the Group of 77 and China...
...decide to accelerate the
implementation of our respective commitments
in this regard [the vital role of women and the need for
full and equal opportunities for their participation and leadership in all
areas of sustainable development] as contained in...
...the United Nations Millennium
Declaration..." June 2014 http://www.g77.org/doc/A-68-948(E).pdf
Note:Women cannot have "full and equal" opportunities
for "their participation...in all
areas of sustainable development" if they die from childbirth, or
their children die, or they have no access to affordable and clean water, as a
result of governments' failure to meet international commitments.
Women cannot "participate" fully if governments give them the wrong
information on what they pledge.
The G-77 now includes most nations.
The decision
"to accelerate the
implementation of our respective commitments [in regard to participation of women in development]..in...the...
Millennium Declaration"
therefore cannot reasonably be interpreted as other than this:
In 2014, most of the world's nations recommitted to the Declaration pledges.
"Resolution adopted by the General Assembly
55/2.8 September 2000
United Nations Millennium Declaration
...We, heads of State and Government, have gathered...As leaders we
have a duty therefore to...in particular, the children...
We resolve...
- To halve, by the year 2015, the
proportion of the world’s people whose income is less than one dollar a day and
the proportion of people who suffer from hunger and, by the same date, to halve
the proportion of people who are unable to reach or to afford safe drinking
water. ...
- By the same date, to have reduced maternal mortality by three
quarters, and under-five child mortality by two thirds, of their current rates. ....
We request the General Assembly to review on a regular basis the progress made in implementing the provisions of this Declaration...
We therefore pledge our unstinting support for these common objectives and our
determination to achieve them."
On 27 July 2015 the UN General Assembly
reaffirmed member states' commitment to
1) economic conditions to fulfil goals of the Millennium Declaration- the Declaration is in at least one
respect more ambitious than later "Millennium Development Goal"
targets, since it has a 2000 baseline -
and
2) a global information campaign on the
Millennium Declaration and
the other agreed goals, which include the World
Food Summit goal of halving the 1996 number of hungry people to, by current official FAO method and
estimates, about 500 million.
The target pledged in the Millennium
Declaration is about 3.6 million child deaths in 2015, not the 4.3 million
implied by the MDG target.
July 2015:
"We, the Heads of State and Government and High Representatives...reaffirm and build on the 2002 Monterrey Consensus"
2002 Monterrey Consensus:
"…economic conditions needed to fulfil
internationally agreed development goals, including those contained in the Millennium Declaration…will be our first step to
ensuring that the twenty-first century becomes the century of development for
all."
"we should encourage…coordination of international
institutions and coherence…to meet
the Millennium Declaration development goals"
"We shall support the United
Nations in the implementation of a global information
campaign on the internationally agreed development goals and objectives, including those contained in theMillennium Declaration." http://www.ycsg.yale.edu/assets/downloads/monterrey_consensus.pdf
"The declaration endorsed targets
set by Secretary-General Kofi Annan in a near-Utopian report last April that
called for halving by the year 2015 the 22 percent of the world's
population now existing on less than a dollar a day."
"A declaration to be signed on
Friday when the summit meeting ends has set ambitious benchmarks....
One such goal proposes to reduce by half over the next 15 years
the number of people earning less than a dollar a day. To achieve that,
President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela reckoned, ''we should increase that income
to levels of fairness and dignity for 140,000 persons each day of each month
and of each year from the present until Dec. 31, 2015.''
"The Italian prime minister, Giuliano Amato, agreed that radical efforts
were required. "
"PLEDGES MADE AT 2000 MILLENNIUM SUMMIT MUST BE TRANSFORMED INTO
REALITY, SPEAKERS STRESS…
JEAN DE RUYT (Belgium), speaking on behalf of the European Union,
said the Unionwould like the Millennium
Declaration to be the touchstonefor any practical steps
taken by the United Nations and its
specialized agencies, and by all
governments."
"Resolution adopted by the General Assembly
56/95. Follow-up to the outcome of the Millennium Summit
The General Assembly,
Recalling its resolution 55/2 of 8 September 2000, by which it adopted the
United Nations Millennium Declaration as the outcome of the Millennium Summit
of the United Nations, held at Headquarters from 6 to 8 September 2000,
Recalling also its resolution 55/162 of 14 December 2000, in which it, inter
alia, requested the Secretary-General to prepare a long-term “road map” towards the
implementation of the Millennium Declaration within the United Nations system
and to submit it to the General Assembly at its fifty-sixth session,
Reaffirmingthe need to maintain the will and momentum of the Millennium Summit,
as well as the importance of a comprehensive and balanced approach in the implementation of and follow-up to
the Millennium Declaration,
1. Takes
note with appreciationof the report of the Secretary-General
entitled “Road maptowards the implementation of the
United Nations Millennium Declaration”;
2. Recommendsthatthe “road map” be considered
as a useful guide in the implementation of the Millennium Declarationby the United Nations system, and invitesMember States, as well as the Bretton Woods
institutions, the World Trade
Organization and other interested parties to consider the “road map”when
formulating plans for implementing goals related to the Declaration;
3. Requests the Secretary-Generalto prepare an annual reportand a
comprehensive report every five years on progress achieved by the United
Nations
system and Member States towards implementing the Millennium
Declaration, drawing upon the “road map”and in accordance with
resolution 55/162, and
requests that the annual reports focus on cross-cutting and cross-sectoral
issues, as
well as on the major areas set forth in the “road map”, while the quinquennial
comprehensive reportsexamine
progressachieved
towardsimplementing
all the commitments made in the Declaration;
4. Invites the United Nations system, in cooperation with Member States,
to
adopt specific measures to give widespread publicity to the
Millennium Declaration
and to increase the dissemination of information on the Declaration;
5. Decides to include in the provisional agenda of its fifty-seventh
session
the item entitled “Follow-up to the outcome of the Millennium Summit”.
2000: "As leaders we have a duty
therefore to...in particular, the children...
We resolve...by the year 2015...to have reduced
child mortality by two thirds, of...
current rates"
[to about 3.6 million child deaths in 2015, or 10,000 deaths a day]
2005: "We, Heads of State and Government...reaffirm the Millennium Declaration…
Westrongly reiterate ourdeterminationto ensure the timely and full
realization of the development goals and objectives
agreed at the major United
Nations conferences and summits,
including those agreed at the Millennium
Summit that are described as
the Millennium Development Goals"[?]
2013: "We, the Heads of State and
Government and heads of delegation...
reaffirm our commitment to the Millennium
Declaration...
and the outcomes of all the
major UN conferences and summits in the economic, social, and
environmental fields."
2002, World Summit on
Sustainable Development Johannesburg Declaration:
“We, the representatives of the peoples of the world…
commit ourselves to the
Johannesburg Plan of Implementation and to expedite the achievement of the
time-bound, socio-economic and environmental targets contained therein.”
Plan of Implementation:
"Develop programmes and initiatives
to reduce, by 2015, mortality rates for infants and
children under 5 by two thirds, and maternal mortality rates by three quarters,
of the prevailing rate in 2000 and reduce disparities between and within developed and developing
countries as quickly as possible "
On 20 December 2002 the General Assembly endorsed the Johannesburg Declaration
and its Plan which included:
"Develop
programmes and initiatives to reduce,
by 2015, mortality rates
for infants and children under 5 by two thirds, and maternal mortality rates by
three quarters, of the prevailing rate in 2000 and reduce disparities between and within
developed and developing countries as quickly as possible"
However, they still committed to the
more ambitious goals:
"We also commit ourselves to achieving the internationally agreed development goals, including those contained
in the United Nations Millennium Declaration and in the outcomes of
the major United Nations conferences
and international agreements
since 1992."
"….concerted
and concrete measures are required
at all levels to enable developing
countries to achieve their sustainable development goals as related to
the internationally agreed poverty -related targets and goals, including those
contained in Agenda 21, the relevant outcomes of other United Nations
conferences and the United Nations Millennium Declaration . This would include
actions at all levels to:
( a ) Halve, by the year 2015, the proportion
of the world’s people whose income is less than 1 dollar a day and the
proportion of people who suffer from hunger and, by the same date, to halve the
proportion of people without access to safe drinking water…
"we agree to halve , by the year
2015, the proportion of
people who are unable to
reach or to afford safe drinking
water (as outlined in the
Millennium Declaration) and the proportion of people who do not have
access to basic sanitation…"
"furtherance of the agreed Millennium development goals, including those
contained in the Millennium Declaration, in particular to halve by 2015 the
proportion of people who suffer from hunger"
"Bearing in mind the target of halving the number of people who live in
poverty by the year 2015, as provided in the Millennium Declaration…
"81 . The implementation of Agenda 21 and the achievement of the
internationally agreed development goals, including those contained in the
Millennium Declaration as well as in the present plan of action, require a
substantially increased effort…"
The Johannesburg Plan of Action of
September 2002 echoed the Monterrey Consensus of March in talking about the
first step being economic conditions to fulfil the Millennium Declaration
commitments:
"achieving …economic conditions needed to fulfil internationally agreed development goals, including those contained in the Millennium Declaration…will be our first step to
ensuring that the twenty-first century becomes the century of sustainable
development for all ."
"Provide technical and financial assistance… to: Design programmes for capacity-building and
support for local, national and community-level programmes that focus on meeting the challenges of
globalization more effectively and attaining
the internationally agreed development goals, including those contained
in the Millennium Declaration…"
"An effective institutional
framework for sustainable development at all levels is key…
Measures aimed at strengthening such a framework…should promote the achievement of the internationally agreed development goals, including
those contained in the Millennium
Declaration, taking into account the Monterrey Consensus and relevant outcomes of other major United Nations
conferences and international agreements since 1992."
Poor governance has been evident
in the false statements by UN agencies and others on leaders' commitments.This is what the Johannesburg Plan of Action
said:
"138. Good governance is
essential for sustainable development. Sound economic policies, solid democratic institutions responsive to
the needs of the people and improved infrastructure are the basis for
sustained economic growth, poverty eradication, and employment creation.
Freedom, peace and security, domestic stability, respect for human rights, including the right to
development, and the rule of law, gender equality, market-oriented policies,
and an overall commitment to just and democratic societies are also essential
and mutually reinforcing."
Providing the wrong information on
government pledges to the poorest is not exactly "respect for human
rights", "democratic institutions responsive to the needs of the
people","the right to
development" or a "commitment to just and democratic societies".
…………………………………………………
"(MDGs), of which the authoritative version was contained in
an Annex to a ‘Road Map’ produced by the Secretary-General in September
2001...the Annex to the ‘Road Map’ was not formally endorsed by the UN
membership, but merely
described as ‘a useful guide’in the relevant Resolution,
"
[Clarification by MB:Mr Manning is
not correct.The General Assembly in Resolution 56/95 of 14 December 2001
recommended the "Road Map", not its Annex containing the MDGs, as a
useful guide. No UN resolution of 2001 mentioned
the MDGs or the Annex
containing the MDG framework.The full text is later in this
document]
"and that the subsequent updating has been carried out by the
so-called Inter-Agency and Expert Group on the Millennium Development Goal
Indicators, a body whose status is pleasingly unclear.
Nevertheless, despite this less than robust formal basis, there
can be no doubt that the MDGs have become highly influential at least at the
level of international discourse about development."
"We,
the representatives of the peoples of the world, have gathered in Tunis from
16-18 November 2005 for this second phase of the World Summit on the
Information Society (WSIS)... We reaffirm our desire and commitment to build a
people-centred, inclusive and development-oriented Information Society..."
MB note:So why is it that the BBC, for
example, has no information at all on the Millennium Declaration pledges on
mortality on its website?
Where is that information on the UK Government and UK Parliament websites?
There are billions of internet terminals (smartphones).How many people know what their nations
committed to in the Declaration?
"...premised on the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United
Nations, international law and effective multilateralism, and respecting fully
and upholding the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, so that people everywhere can create, access, utilize and
share information and knowledge, ...to attain the internationally-agreed
development goals of the Millennium
Declaration. ..."
"This Summit is an important stepping-stone in the world’s efforts to
eradicate poverty and to attain the internationally-agreed development goals of
the Millennium Declaration."
“The norms and values embedded in the
Millennium Declaration and international human rights instruments must continue
to provide the foundation for engagement, in particular the key human rights
principles of non-discrimination, meaningful participation and accountability”.
"...the deputy secretary general
pointed out. "What the Summit will do is elevate the level of commitment
to make it a commitment by the leaders themselves. This makes a big
difference."
"Let us resolve therefore: - To
halve, by the time this century is 15 years old, the proportion of
the world’s people (currently 22 per cent) whose income is less than
one dollar a day.
- To halve, by the same date, the proportion of people (currently 20 per cent)
who are unable to reach, or to afford, safe drinking water."
"Specifically, I urge the Summit
to adopt the target of reducing by half, between now and 2015,
the proportion of people who lack sustainable access to adequate sources of
affordable and safe water."
In 2001 member states at the UN did
not refer to the Secretary-General's proposed MDG structure at all.
The resolution of 14 December 2001 only referred to the 58-page "road
map" containing the MDGs, not the MDGs themselves.
The "road map" has many more suggestions.Member states did not say which parts they
welcomed, recommended as a useful guide, or invited the Secretary-General to
take into account for his reports on implementing the Declaration.
Far from formally adopting the easier 1990-baseline MDGs, the next week member states reaffirmed the
2000-baseline Declaration more than once:
"The General Assembly…Reaffirming
also the United Nations Millennium
Declaration"
"Reaffirming the United Nations Millennium Declaration, in particular the targets and commitments relating to
development and poverty eradication ….
Requests the
Secretary-General to provide the General Assembly at its fifty-seventh session
with an overview of the
challenges and constraints as well as progress
made towards achieving the
major development goals and
objectives adopted by the United Nations during the past decade"
"The General Assembly… Reaffirming also the United Nations
Millennium Declaration … Encourages the international
community, the United Nations system, the private sector and civil society to
continue to provide the necessary
financial resources to assist national Governments in their efforts to meet the development targets and
benchmarks agreed upon at the World Summit for Social Development, the Fourth
World Conference on Women, the International Conference on Population and
Development, the Millennium Summit,
the International Conference on Financing for Development, the World Summit on
Sustainable Development…"
"without vigorous
democratic participation, official accountability,
strengthened institutional capacity, Governments are unlikely to deliver on commitments to achieve the Millennium
Declaration, including the Millennium Development Goals, and other internationally agreed development goals."
Report of the Secretary-General on the work of the Organization
2007 http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/sgreport2007.pdf
How can people have "vigorous democratic
participation" if the authorities tell them leaders only pledged the
easier MDG targets?
"At the 2005 World
Summit (see General Assembly resolution 60/1), world leaders committed themselves to achieving four
targets additional to the ones
included in the United Nations Millennium Declaration"
The Secretary-General's 2007 report falsely refers to the 1990-baseline targets as
"targets (from the
Millennium Declaration)…1990…1990…"
- in the cases of the mortality targets, directly contradicting the Declaration's text,
"of their current rates".
The General Assembly on 14 December 2001 requested the
Secretary-General to draw on the "road map" for his reports.
However, the same
resolution requested the Secretary-General to submit reports on “all the
commitments in the Declaration”.The resolution called for reports in accordance with Resolution 55/162,
which states:
"The General
Assembly…requests the Secretary-General to prepare a comprehensive report every
five years, supplemented by an annual
report on progress achieved towards implementing the Millennium Declaration, taking into
account the following:
(a) The annual
reports should reflect
the broad array of specific
goals and commitmentsenunciated in the Millennium
Declaration…
(b) All reports should focus, in this respect, on the results and benchmarks achieved,
identify gaps in implementation…"
So any idea that the Assembly in 2001 was giving up the pledges and replacing
them with the easier MDG targets seems to be misplaced.
The Assembly agreed the 2000-baseline Declaration, and again in 2001 and later.
"The
General Assembly adopted resolution 56/192…on 21 December 2001. Reaffirming the Millennium Declaration goal of
reducing by half, between 2000 and
2015, the proportion of people who are unable to reach or to afford
safe drinking water, the Assembly welcomed…"
The General Assembly debated the
Secretary-General's Road Map on implementing the Millennium Declaration.
The Road Map contained the proposed
easier MDG targets.
The debate took place on 19 November
2001 - after UN staff had distributed
the MDG structure to UN country representatives.
19 November
2001
United Nations Press Release GA/9973
"PLEDGES MADE AT 2000 MILLENNIUM SUMMIT MUST BE TRANSFORMED
INTO REALITY, SPEAKERS STRESS, AS GENERAL ASSEMBLY CONSIDERS SUMMIT FOLLOW-UP
Takes Up‘Road
Map’ to Millennium Declaration Implementation
[Comment:The resolution resulting from
this debate of 19 November 2001 was not until 14 December.The mention of the Road Map in that
resolution, 56/95, was not exactly that the Assembly "took up" the
Road Map.]
…Before the Assembly
there is a report of the Secretary-General on the road map towards the implementation of the United Nations
Millennium Declaration (document A/56/326). The report contains an
integrated and comprehensive overview of the current situation. It
outlines potential strategies
for action that are designed to meet the
goals and commitments made by
the 147 heads of State and government, and 189 Member States in total, who
adopted the Millennium Declaration"
"Speaking on behalf of the European Union, the Belgian representative said
that one must not forget the goals of
the Millennium Declaration. … The Millennium Declaration offered the opportunity to make
multifaceted action more effective and coherent, with a view to realizing the
objectives that governments had set themselves, particularly in the area of
development and human rights.
One must not forget that the goals of
the Millennium Declaration were ambitious, he continued."
"JEAN DE RUYT (Belgium), speaking on behalf of the European Union, said the Union would like the Millennium Declaration to be the
touchstone for any practical
steps taken by the United Nations and its specialized agencies, and by all
governments. … The
Millennium Declaration offered the opportunity to make multifaceted action more
effective and coherent, with a view to realizing the objectives that
governments had set themselves, particularly in the area of development and
human rights.
One must not forget that the goals of the Millennium Declaration were
ambitious, he continued. The road leading to the Millennium objectives
was a difficult one, as it was both foggy and much travelled, which was why it
needed to be clearly and precisely marked. "
"KISHORE MAHBUBANI (Singapore) said that the history of the United
Nations was replete with summits and declarations. They came, they went,
and nothing much changed. It was, therefore, easy to become cynical about
such summits and their results. If the Millennium Summit and its results were not to be tarnished
with such cynicism, the international community would have to be serious about
matching beautiful words with beautiful deeds. To ensure that the United
Nations did not once again fail to
implement agreed commitments, Member States should complement the
excellent “road map” produced by the Secretariat with an objective analysis of
the “roadblocks” that had prevented the implementation of previous commitments."
"GERT ROSENTHAL (Guatemala) said …His delegation, however, observed
that in requesting, in its resolution 55/162, a “road map‚” the General
Assembly may have erred, for the Millennium
Declaration itself constituted such a map."
"On
September 25, 2008, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao
delivered a keynote speech at the U. N. High-Level Meeting on the Millennium
Development Goals (MDGs) at the United Nations headquarters in New York. ...
Wen said that China
has honored its commitments
to the Millennium Declaration and done what it can to help some least
developed countries.
Meanwhile,
the premier pointed out, about one billion people in the world still live below
the poverty line. To attain the goals
of the Millennium Declaration globally remains a long and uphill
journey...
...It is important to improve the working mechanisms for the development goals
in the Millennium Declaration."
"If
the Millennium Declaration of
the United Nations were not to become another waste paper lying buried in the
archives, it would have to be implemented
in all sincerity and entirety,
said the representative of Pakistan this afternoon, as the General Assembly
continued its consideration of the follow-up to the Millennium Summit."
"The pace of the follow-up to the outcome of the Millennium Summit fell
far short of the goals set in the
Millennium Declaration, said the representative of China. …WANG YINGFAN
(China) said …"
"Switzerland, said…Road Map presented by the Secretary-General. …closely
followed the main guidelines of the Millennium Declaration. …The best way
forward would be to concentrate on the
objectives put forward during the Millennium
Summit."
"(Brazil) said that the road map prepared by the Secretary-General was
extremely useful. … Many of the goals of the Millennium Declaration had
been with us for years, he said. Brazil believed that to be effective,
assessment must be continuous and it therefore endorsed the Secretary-General's
proposal to follow up the road map with yearly reports, supported by strategic
five-year evaluations on the long-term implementation of the millennium
goals."
"(Argentina) reaffirmed the
commitments of the Millennium Declaration and said it was a matter of
political will for States to implement the road map the Secretary-General had
set out."
Kazakhstan "supported the strategies of the “road map” prepared by the
Secretary-General. It was committed to a peaceful, stable and
environmentally safe world, and supported
all of the objectives of the Millennium Summit."
"(Cameroon) said that in the Millennium Declaration, a year ago, the
world’s leaders had embodied all the highest aspirations of the world’s people
for peace and development. The documents before the Assembly today
represented the Secretary-General’s roadmap for implementing the ideal then set
out."
"The
General Assembly… Reaffirming the goal of
reducing by half, between 2000 and
2015, the proportion of people who are unable to reach or to afford
safe drinking water…"
"The
General Assembly...Endorses the Addis Ababa Action Agenda…
Addis
Ababa Action Agenda…We, the Heads of State and Government and High
Representatives, gathered in Addis Ababa from 13 to 16 July 2015….reaffirm and build on the 2002 Monterrey Consensus…"
"…achieving the…economic conditions
needed to fulfil
internationally agreed development goals, including those contained in the Millennium Declaration…will be our first step to
ensuring that the twenty-first century becomes the century of development for
all."
"commitments of the Millennium
Declaration and other internationally agreed development targets can
help countries to set short- and medium-term national priorities…"
"we should encourage…coordination
of international institutions and coherence…to meet the Millennium Declaration development goals"
"We
recognize the link between financing of development and attaining
internationally agreed development goals and objectives, including those
contained in theMillennium
Declaration, in measuring
development progress and helping to guide development priorities. We
welcome in that regard the
intention of the United Nations to prepare a report annually. We encourage close cooperation between the
United Nations, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the World
Trade Organization in the preparation of that
report.We shall support
the United Nations in the implementation of a global information campaign on the internationally agreed
development goals and
objectives, including those contained in theMillennium Declaration. In that respect, we would like to
encourage the active involvement of all relevant stakeholders, including civil
society organizations and the private sector."
Final text of agreements and commitments adopted at the International
Conference on Financing for Development
...The
General Assembly adopted resolution 56/192 on ‘Status of preparations for the
International Year of Freshwater, 2003’, on 21 December 2001. Reaffirming the Millennium Declaration
goal of reducing by half, between 2000 and 2015, the proportion of
people who are unable to reach or to afford safe drinking water, the Assembly
welcomed…
By its resolution 56/95 on the
‘Follow-up to the outcome of the Millennium Summit’ of 14 December 2001,
the Assembly, reaffirming the need to
maintain the will and momentum of
the Millennium Summit as well as the importance of a comprehensive and
balanced approach in the implementation of and follow-up to the Millennium
Declaration, recommended that the “Road map towards the implementation of the
United Nations Millennium Declaration” submitted by the Secretary-General
(document A/56/326) be considered as a useful guide in the implementation of
the Millennium Declaration by the UN system. The Assembly requested the
Secretary-General to prepare, drawing upon the road map and in accordance with its resolution 55/162,
an annual report and a comprehensive report every five years on progress
achieved by the UN system and Member States towards implementing the Millennium Declaration, and requested that
the annual reports focus on cross-cutting and cross-sectoral issues, as well as
on the major areas set forth in the road map, while the quinquennial
comprehensive reports examine
progress achieved towards implementing all
the commitments made in the Declaration. In this regard, the Assembly invited
the UN system, in cooperation with Member States, to adopt specific measures to
give widespread publicity to the
Millennium Declaration and to increase the dissemination of information
thereon."
"World Food Summit, countries
back global action plan against hunger
11 June 2002 – Countries from across
the globe attending a United Nations conference in Rome have renewed their commitment to reduce by half the number
of hungry people in the world by no later than 2015, the UN Food and
Agricultural Organization (FAO), which is organizing the event, announced
today."
World
Summit on Sustainable Development 2002
(Earth Summit)
Johannesburg Declaration 2002:
“We, the representatives of the peoples of the
world…commit ourselves
to the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation and to expedite the achievement of the
time-bound, socio-economic and environmental targets contained therein. … we solemnly pledge to
the peoples of the world and the generations that will surely inherit this
Earth that we are determined to
ensure that our collective hope for sustainable development is
realized.”
Plan of Implementation:
""We also commit
ourselves to achieving the internationally agreed development goals, including
those contained in the United Nations Millennium
Declaration and in the outcomes of the major United Nations conferences
and international agreements since 1992"
"Develop programmes and initiatives to reduce, by 2015, mortality
rates for infants and children under 5 by two thirds, and maternal
mortality rates by three quarters, of the prevailing rate in 2000 and reduce disparities between and within
developed and developing countries as quickly as possible"
“How will Government adherence to commitments
made in Johannesburg be monitored?
Following decisions made at the Summit, the UN Commission on Sustainable
Development (CSD) will now have an enhanced role in respect of reviewing and
monitoring …”
2002:
"The General Assembly…
Cognizant
of…the need to achieve the internationally agreed development
goals, including those set
out in the Millennium Declaration..." Resolution
57/7
Final review and appraisal of the United Nations New Agenda for the Development
of Africa in the 1990s and support for the New Partnership for Africa’s
Development
4 November 2002
www1.uneca.org/nepad/nepad_ares577.aspx
2003:
"We,
the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the Group of 77 and China...at the United
Nations Headquarters in New York on 25 September 2003, adopted the following
declaration:
...We
reaffirm our commitment to the
Millennium Declaration and call upon the international community to
fully and speedily implement the provisions
set out therein and in other
major United Nations conferences and summits"
Reaffirming the United Nations Millennium Declaration...
Recognizes that a substantial increase in official development assistance and
other resources will be required if developing countries are to achieve the
internationally agreed development goals and objectives, including those
contained in the United Nations Millennium Declaration...
Encourages the international community, the United Nations system, the
private sector and civil society to continue to provide the necessary financial resources to assist
national Governments in their efforts to meet the development targets and benchmarks agreed
upon at the World Summit for Social Development, the Fourth World Conference on
Women, the International Conference on Population and Development, the Millennium Summit..."
"We
strongly reiterate our determination to ensure the timely and full realization
of the development goals and objectives agreed at the major United Nations
conferences and summits, including those
agreed at the Millennium Summit that are described as the Millennium
Development Goals... " [!]
"U.N. Document Clarifies [?] Development
Goals, State's Silverberg Says
General Assembly consensus on document expected September 16
By Kathryn McConnell | Washington File Staff Writer | 16 September 2005
New York – The negotiated
final summit document expected to be adopted September 16 by the U.N. General
Assembly clarifies that the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are those agreed to by the United States and other
U.N. members in the 2000 Millennium
Declaration, says Assistant Secretary of State Kristen Silverberg.
In an exclusive interview with the Washington File September 15,
Silverberg, who heads the State Department’s Bureau of International
Organization Affairs, said the United States regards the Millennium Declaration
– a key set of principles and objectives on an array of international issues –
as a “good product.”
She said that to reach a consensus
agreement, all countries participating in its negotiation process gave up
something they initially wanted. The document, as a result, reflects “disparate
views” of the interests of countries around the world, she said. (See related
article.)
Silverberg said the United States continues to “strongly
support” the goals it agreed to in the Millennium Declaration, such as reducing world poverty by
half by 2015 and reducing instances of HIV/AIDS.
“Sometimes people use [the term] MDGs
to mean other things, in particular of a list of targets and indicators that
were in a document the [U.N.]
secretariat produced” following the Millennium Declaration, Silverberg
said. The United States did not
negotiate that document or agree to it and neither did many other states.
It is solely a document of the secretariat, she said.
She said confusion about the U.S.
stance on the MDGs was a result of erroneous reports presented by some media
about the meaning of the term “Millennium Development Goals.”
“The outcome [final summit] document
clarifies the term MDGs, which means
goals in the Millennium Declaration,” she said.[?]
"Mr.
Chairman, Excellencies Heads of State and Government,
At the Millennium Summit, leaders across the world declared they would spare no
effort... The peoples of the world are
looking to us in anticipation. They
expect real steps towards realising the goals in the Millennium Declaration."
Kjell Magne Bondevik, Prime Minister of
Norway
International Conference on Financing for Development, Monterrey, Mexico
March 2002
"1.2
billion people around the World live in extreme poverty. They live on less than
one dollar-a-day. They constitute approximately one fifth of the World population. In the United Nations
Millennium Declaration we decided to reduce this share by half in 2015....the target of halving the number of poor by 2015."
Per Stir Møller, Minister of Foreign
Affairs of Denmark.
Statement at the International Conference on Financing for Development
Monterrey, Mexico
18th-22th March 2002
"In September 2000, at the UN
Millennium Summit, world leaders
agreed to a set of time–bound and measurable goals and targets.....
These targets
[? - in fact
the "time-bound" targets have a different standard baseline in the
MDGs] ,
plus a number of other targets with
which UN member states have not agreed, were listed as the Millennium
Development Goals (MDGs) in the UN Secretary–General’s 2001 report,
“Road Map Towards the Implementation of the UN Millennium Declaration.” The
United Nations mounted a campaign to raise public awareness of the MDGs, and
aims to build coalitions and mobilize worldwide political action on behalf of
the MDGs.
In
March 2002, the President said, “America
supports the international development goals in the UN Millennium Declaration,
and believes that these goals are a shared responsibility of developed
and developing countries." "
"…in
the year 2000 we had 150 heads of states and government and princes come to the
UN …They have challenged us to reduce abject poverty by 50 per cent between now and 2015."
"Dozens
of heads of government from Africa, Asia and Latin America came to what was
billed as an effort to halve the
number of hungry people, from more than 800 million to 400 million ...
The
summit was called to generate money and momentum for a flagging effort,
launched at a similar gathering in 1996, to halve the number of hungry people
by 2015. Those who did come to Rome yesterday admitted that, six years on,
little progress had been made.
The
UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, said 24,000 people died each day from hunger.
"In a world of plenty, ending hunger is within our grasp. Failure to reach this goal should fill
every one of us with shame. The time for making promises is over. It is
time to act."
"On
behalf of the European Union...the world community still has far to go if we are
to meet the goals of the Millennium
Declaration.
For
many countries, the United Nations is first and foremost about combating
poverty. How to ensure everyone access to the essentials of life; the next
meal; the medicine and health care to survive; and access to basic education.
These are the promises contained in
the Millennium Declaration. And we must not let the world down."
Statement by H.E. Anders Fog Rasmussen
Prime Minister of Denmark on behalf of the European Union
Fifty-Seventh Session Of The General Assembly
General Debate
New York, 12 September 2002 http://www.un.org/webcast/ga/57/statements/020912denmarkE.htm
"The
President: The Assembly will now hear an address by His Excellency Mr. John
Agyekum Kufuor, President of the Republic of Ghana.
President
Kufuor: The eyes of the people of Africa are on us today. For so long they have
heard pledges and promises from their leaders and their development partners,
and they have seen those promises
broken.
We appeal to this Organization,
and through it to the world, to seize this opportunity to work together with Africa to implement NEPAD, which is our
framework for achieving the vision of
the Millennium Declaration."
"Unless
we can speed things up dramatically, we shall find when we get to 2015, that
the words of the Declaration
ring hollow."
57/144. Follow-up to the outcome of the Millennium Summit
The General Assembly…Reaffirming the importance of
the implementation of and follow-up to the Millennium
Declaration in a
comprehensive, integrated, coordinated and balanced manner…
2. Recognizes the uneven progress made
so far in achieving the objectives agreed upon in the Millennium Declaration, and urges Member States to continue to undertake with determination appropriate
measures towards its implementation;
3. Invites the organizations and agencies of
the United Nations system, the Bretton Woods institutions and the World Trade
Organization, and encourages other interested parties, including civil society
and the private sector, to continue to
pursue vigorously the achievement of the objectives and goals contained in the Millennium Declaration…
6. Decides to consider…a high-level
plenary meeting…[in 2005-6] on the review of the implementation of the
Millennium Declaration and consideration of the quinquennial comprehensive report of the Secretary-General on the progress achieved towards
implementing the Millennium
Declaration;
7. Also decides that the review process of the
implementation of the development goals
contained in the Millennium
Declaration will be considered within the framework of… follow-up to
the outcomes of the major United Nations conferences and summits in the
economic and social fields, while taking into account the need to attach more importance, coherence and
visibility to the implementation of the Millennium
Declaration and its review process;
8. Invites the United Nations system, in
cooperation with Member States, to promote
awareness of the Millennium Declaration, and the development goals contained therein, through
increased dissemination of information and widespread publicity…"
Reaffirming
the United Nations Millennium Declaration...
...resources will be required if developing
countries are to achieve the internationally agreed development goals and objectives, including
those contained in the United
Nations Millennium Declaration...
Encourages ...to continue to provide....resources...to
meet the development targets...
agreed upon at ...the Millennium Summit..."
1.
Decides to convene in New York in 2005….a high-level plenary meeting of the
Assembly with the participation of heads of State and Government…
2. …this major event will undertake
a comprehensive review of the
progress made in the fulfilment of all the commitments
contained in the United Nations Millennium
Declaration….and of
the progress …of the outcomes and commitments
of the major United Nations conferences
and summits in the economic, social and related fields, on the basis of
a comprehensive report to be submitted by the Secretary-General"
"We, Heads of State and
Government...call for strengthened cooperation..., in particular through the
Inter-Parliamentary Union, with a view to furthering all aspects of the Millennium
Declaration"
"we reaffirm our commitment to
contribute decisively [? - ambiguously? ] to the Millennium Development Goals of the Millennium Declaration
agreed to at the 2000 Summit and other development targets we have agreed to in
other international fora. We will reinvigorate our efforts to meet these
goals...we pledge our commitment to...foster human rights, democracy, and good
governance...
[The EU and US broke their stated intention on democracy and good governance
before they made the declaration, by including in it a passage either blurring
the difference or falsely implying that the easier MDGs were the Millennium
pledges.]
...We will continue to support partner countries as
they work to achieve the health-related
goals of the Millennium Declaration.
We are accountable for progress in delivering on our
promises to combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, TB, polio and other
diseases."
"The
United States is a strong and consistent supporter of the goals of the
Millennium Declaration"
[quotes Monterrey
Consensus: "Achieving the internationally agreed
development goals, including those contained in the Millennium Declaration,
demands a new partnership between developed and developing countries.
-International Conference on Financing
for Development, Monterrey, Mexico, March 2002"]
"To
meet and sustain the goals of the Millennium Declaration, the world community
must help developing nations harness the full potential of resource
flows to countries in the developing world."
"The United States has extensive programs in education, infectious
diseases, famine prevention, and other areas that support the goals of Millennium Declaration."
The United States Commitment to the Millennium Development Goals
United States Agency for International Development
April 2008
"The
General Assembly, Reaffirming the commitments
made by the international community in
the United Nations Millennium Declaration, in particular its goal to
create an environment conducive to development and the elimination of
poverty"
"We,
Heads of State and Government…reaffirm our
resolve to work together for the promotion of the economic and social
advancement of all peoples, recalling
the development goals and commitments
emanating from the United
Nations Millennium Declaration
and the 2005 World Summit Outcome.
2.
We reaffirm that we continue to be guided by the purposes and principles of the
Charter of the United Nations and with full respect for international law and
its principles.
3.
We also reaffirm the importance of freedom, peace and security, respect for all
human rights, including the right to development, the rule of law, gender
equality and an overall commitment to
just and democratic societies for development.
4.
We underscore the continued relevance
of the outcomes of all major
United Nations conferences and
summits in the economic, social and related fieldsand the commitments contained therein, including the Millennium Development Goals…"
General Assembly Resolution 65/1
22 September 2010
Note:It is not clear why the UN is
talking about "commitments" to the MDGs in outcomes of UN conferences
and summits.The US claimed in 2005
that the mention of MDGs in the 2005 Summit outcome in fact meant the
Declaration goals, not the "MDGs" produced by Kofi Annan's
staff.
"We reaffirm the importance of
the United Nations Millennium
Declaration and underscore
the continuing relevance of
the outcomes of all major United
Nations conferences and summits in the economic, social and related
fields, as well as the important commitments
contained therein."
"The
landmark Millennium Declaration
....and the 2005 World Summit Outcome Document... reflect the commitment of
Member States to reach specific goals..."
"The
Global Campaign for the Health Millennium Development Goals was initiated by
Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg of Norway in 2007. The Campaign brings together a number of actions and initiatives,
all aimed at fulfilling the promises given by world leaders in the Millennium
Declaration in 2000."
"The MDGs
were informally endorsed at the UN Conference on International Financing
for Development at Monterrey in 2002..." A post-2015 global development agreement: why, what, who?
Claire Melamed and Andy Sumner
Overseas Development Institute, London and United Nations Development Programme
2011 www.odi.org/resources/docs/7369.pdf
[MB note:
Very informally if so.
I think the statement that the MDGs were "informally endorsed" at a UN
conference of 2002 is misleading.
The Monterrey outcome document does not mention MDGs at all.It does mention the Declaration, as did
national representatives.
An OECD document states more accurately,
"The MDGs were endorsed by multilateral development banks, among
others, at the International Conference on Financing for Development in
Monterrey in March, 2002."
Melamed and
Sumner write,
".The Declaration has a
longer and higher set of aspirations, and should not be confused with the very specific and time-bound [Confusing and/or
misleading:the Declaration already had
"specific" and "time-bound" indicators] set of indicators which comprise
the 8 MDGs and 21 targets
through with progress towards the Declaration is to be measured. ..."
MB note:The fact that the Declaration
had already set specific, time-bound indicators was emphasised by Prime
Minister Ahern at the Millennium Summit.
It is not clear that Melamed and Sumner are right
that the US were "persuaded to retain" the MDGs in the leaders'
document of 2005. They write:
"As late as 2005, in the build up to the World Summit, the government of
the United States argued for
removing the references to the MDGs in the draft Summit Outcome Document, with
the rationale that they had never been
agreed..."
That is true.But it was not only "in the build up to
the World Summit".During the
Summit, the US also argued on 15 September 2005 that the references which were
in the agreed document were not to the MDGs but to the Declaration goals.
Melamed and Sumner continue:
"...(although they were eventually
persuaded to retain them)."
Was the US government persuaded to retain the MDGs in the 2005 outcome
document?
Not according to Assistant Secretary of State Silverberg the day before the
agreement.She said that the wording referred
to the Declaration, not the MDGs.
Melamed and
Sumner write:
"The final 2005 World Summit
Outcome document reaffirms the
UN Millennium Declaration on the first page, but only begrudgingly recognizes the MDGs in
paragraph seventeen"
Is it true that leaders in 2005 recognised the MDGs?
See
above - the US stated that it and other member states were still not recognising the MDGs.
The leaders' paragraph 17 reads:
"We strongly reiterate our determination to ensure the timely
and full realization of the
development goals and
objectives agreed at the major United Nations conferences and summits" - which means among other things, bringing number of hungry people to half
the 1996 level, and certainly meeting the Millennium Declaration goals.
But the paragraph continues:
"including those agreed at the Millennium Summit that are described as the Millennium
Development Goals, [?] which
have helped to galvanize efforts towards poverty eradication."
The wording in the document and in the
statement by the Assistant Secretary of State are strange.
The Millennium Summit certainly did
agree goals "described as the Millennium Development Goals" - but
those were the non-time-bound overall Goals 1 to 7.The situation on the targets for 2015 is more
complex.
The leaders' statement of 2005 is
either restrictive to the point of excluding many of the most well-known MDG
targets, or at least partially nonsensical.
For example, there is a Millennium Summit goal on water with a 2000 baseline,
and the OECD document of September 2001 states that the MDG architects agreed a
2000 baseline for water.So that might
be a goal which was agreed at the Summit and known as an MDG target (perhaps
incorrectly, since most people seem to think it has a 1990 baseline).But the Summit goal includes affordability.So even this does not really fall into the
category defined by leaders in 2005.
The US position of 15 September 2005 in
relation to this paragraph does not make much sense either, as by then people
did generally think of the term "Millennium Development Goals" as
referring to the framework with 1990 baselines.
However, it is clear that the Assistant
Secretary of State was saying on 15 September that the US position was
this:Kofi Annan's MDG document with the
1990 baselines was not what was about to be endorsed by the 2005 Summit.
Further, since the leaders reaffirmed
the Millennium Declaration and other outcomes of summits and conferences, their
actual commitments are not diminished by the publicity given to theeasier MDGs.
……………………………………………………………..
The Millennium
Declaration commits governments to a break with business as usual.
The MDGs seem largely based on business as usual.
"The commitment by world leaders at
this month's United Nations Millennium Summit to halve global poverty and
hunger ...
These and other goals that the world signed up to are...best-case scenarios...might be called a "stretch target."
"The
Co-Chairperson (Namibia): We have come to the close of this historic Millennium
Summit...
We cannot, therefore, afford to go back home from here and continue business as usual."
“few observers ever noticed
that the Millennium Declaration left considerable room for interpretation as to
the level of ambition of the global targets.
[MB note: Did the Declaration
leave considerable room for interpretation on the ambition?Not really, if you consider
a) common sense and what people might reasonably conclude from the words in the
Declaration;
b) that states welcomed the 2000-baseline Millennium Report and its proposed
goals for the Summit,
c) that the media reported a 2000 baseline in 2000,
d) that the FAO, at least in the early years, took "present level" in
the 1996 World Food Summit pledge to mean 1996,
e) that an OECD document from 2001 states that the MDG water target, which has
no baseline in the MDG list, has a 2000 baseline,
f) that the heads of UN development agencies on 6 November 2001 sent out a
document stating that the Declaration text "would imply" a 2000
baseline;
g) that the Declaration refers to "safe" and "affordable"
water, rather than the "improved sources" in the MDG indicator.]
It
was left to the group of UN experts
[MB note: Not accurate enough. It was UN, World Bank, OECD and IMF experts,
and the extent of influence by others is not knowable]
to set the baseline year. The choice quickly fell on 1990, for two reasons.
First, it proved unrealistic
[MB note: How did they know it "proved unrealistic" less than a
year into 15-year pledges?Is leadership
not about leadership?]
to reduce hunger, poverty and the proportion of people without access to
safe drinking water by half, infant and child mortality by two-thirds, and
maternal mortality by three-quarters between 2000 and 2015.”
[MB note:But the OECD document of 14/17 September
2001, whose contact name is Brian Hammond, who sat on Dr Vandemoortele's group
setting the targets, states that the group agreed a 2000 baseline for the water
target.]
MB note:I do not
consider that Dr Vandemoortele would have a strong case that the Declaration –
in context -left room for
interpretation on the baseline.
If someone says "I will double your salary" and then later says
"I meant from its level ten years ago" that would not be fair.
The leaders knew perfectly well that what they said would be taken as meaning
from 2000.
The Secretary-General's recommendations, the speakers' words at the Summit, and
arguably the fact that the focus of the Summit was the 21st century
and not the 20th confirm what common sense might say.
In any case, even where the politicians did make the baseline clear – for the
mortality goals and for the 1996 hunger pledges – the civil servants, and
others, began falsely claiming that the politicians set 1990 and"1990-2" baselines.
"It was left to the group
of UN experts to set the baseline year. The choice quickly fell on 1990,
for two reasons. First, it proved unrealistic to reduce hunger, poverty and the
proportion of people without access to safe drinking water by half, infant and
child mortality by two-thirds, and maternal mortality by three-quarters between
2000 and 2015. It was obvious that more time would be needed to achieve such
ambitious targets.
... The US administration at the time took the view that the General Assembly
never formally endorsed the MDGs; thereby questioning their legitimacy and
authority. But since the targets were
lifted verbatim[!] from the Millennium
Declaration, we argued that formal endorsement was redundant because
member states had already agreed upon them earlier." [!]
"the [MDG] teamdetermined that 1990 would be a more
reasonable fit compared to historical trends, thereby lessening the
pressures on world leaders for 2015."
The Origins of the
Millennium Development Goals
johnmcarthur.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/SAISreview2014mcarthur.pdf
"MDGs, 18 targets and 40 indicators…were decided
bymeasuring global trends
in human development over a 25-year period from 1965-1990, and applying them to living standards over the
1990-2015 period, assuming that rates of progress stayed the same.
The MDGs were not intended to increase rates of progressin human
development so much as maintain them. "
"The IAEG finally decided to utilise 1990 as
the baseline for the MDGs as most of the targets of the international
conferences and summits from which the MDGs have been distilled utilise this
baseline. With the decision about the baseline, the IAEG ultimately set the
level of ambition for the MDGs. The
majority of the targets of the original conferences and summits were derived
from simple linear forward projections of the global progress of the 1970s and
1980s. Thus, fully in line with RBM’s idea of realistic targets, the
MDGs represented a political statement
of what should be feasible at the global level.
Vandemoortele (2008: 221):
‘Were
progress for child survival, for instance, to continue as in the 1970s and 1980s, the global under-five mortality
rate (U5MR) in 2015 would be
two-thirds lower than in 1990. Were the global net enrolment ratio (NER)
to continue its increase of the 1970s and 1980s, universal primary education
could be achieved by 2015.’"
"At
the World Food Summit in Rome in November 1996, the United States and 185 other
countries made a promise....
The international community set the goal of reducing the number of undernourished people to half the 1996 level by 2015."
The pledges of 2000, reaffirmed 2013,
are wider in scope than the Millennium Development Goals.It is not clear why all the pledges should
expire in December 2015.
"Many civil society organizations
broadly support the global partnership that the Goals
encapsulate, as laid out in the UN
Millennium Declaration, but remain skeptical about the Goals themselves,
for several reasons. They question whether the Goals are different from
previous UN goals that were not met. They have not been systematically involved
in the Goal-setting process and so feel no ownership. They argue that the Goals
are “top down,” imposed by the international community, rather than locally
developed, and that there is uncertainty about their role in achieving the
Goals. They see the Goals as too
narrow and unambitious, especially in comparison to the UN Millennium
Declaration, leaving out critical issues of importance."
"the MDGs are also often
described as being an outcome of various global summits in the 1990s. Yet
several authors believe that for political reasons some ‘hard-fought goals’ got left behind, such as the
importance of reproductive health agreed upon in the International Conference
on Population and Development (Cairo, 1994) and the Fourth World Conference on
Women (Beijing, 1995; Haines
& Cassels, 2004; Mohindra
& Nikiema, 2010). Pogge (2004)
sees MDG 1 (‘Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger’) as being far less ambitious
when compared to the poverty reduction goal set at the 1996 World Food Summit
in Rome. With the MDGs, the choice was made to halve the proportion of people
suffering from hunger and poverty instead of halving the absolute numbers of
people suffering. Pogge calculates that this would result in a reduction of
only 101.5 million instead of 547 million people living on less than $1 per
day. In regard to education, Robinson (2005)
explains that only two out of the three timed goals discussed at the Dakar
World Education Forum in 2000 were included in the MDGs; the target of adult literacy, especially for
women, and equitable access to basic and continuing education for all adults
were not integrated into the MDGs.
Fukuda-Parr (2010)
doubts that the original intent of eight goals – to be indicators of progress
in the implementation of the objectives presented in the Millennium Declaration
– was indeed achieved in the formulation of the MDGs. Various authors explain
that only one of the seven key
objectives of the Declaration (that of development and poverty eradication) became fundamental to the MDG
framework, whereas other
goals such as peace, security, disarmament, human rights and democracy were
left behind (Hill,
Mansoor, & Claudio, 2010; Waage
et al., 2010). Langford (2010)
writes that the MDGs of ‘gender equality
and the empowerment of women’ were narrowed down to gender equality in
education, and the target for ‘affordable
water’ was dropped from the MDG list in order to allow for
privatisation in the sector."
"Before
examining the political processes for the next generation of MDGs, it is
important to note that the first set was not tabled and voted on in the UN. The
global leaders agreed to the UN Millennium Declaration in September 2000, but
the actual set of MDGs was put together for the Financing for Development
Summit that took place in Mexico the following year. The US government used
this ‘ownership’ gap of the process prior to the 2005 MDG Summit when it
contended that the United States had never agreed to the MDGs."
Towards Sustainable Development Goals: Working Paper 18/2014
Nils Meyer-Ohlendorf, Benjamin Görlach, Keighley McFarland Ecologic Institute, Berlin
On behalf of the Federal Environment Agency (Germany)
"The
eight Millennium Development Goals,
which were drawn from the declaration, [!] were published along with indicators and targets in August [September]
2001. The goals were devised in a working
committee drawn from a range of U.N. bodies, including the World Bank, the
International Monetary Fund, Unicef, the Population Fund and the World Health
Organization, as well as the Organization for Economic Cooperation and
Development. Rosenthal described the goals as a “grab bag” of ideas drawn from
a host of U.N. sources as well as the Millennium Declaration itself. …
Michael Doyle, a Princeton scholar who
had by then taken Ruggie’s place on the Secretary General’s team, led the
working committee…
Doyle…said in an interview that his group, in refining the goals and
indicators, had to start with the premise that “if it wasn’t in the declaration it couldn’t be in the goals.”
"
" "internationally agreed development goals, including those in the Millennium Declaration"...spells
out exactly what we are committed to...
...must not backtrack on previous
agreements...
President Bush said..."America
supports the international development goals in the UN Millennium Declaration.” We remain committed to work with
member states in support of those goals."
Adopted
by 147 Heads of State and Government and other world leaders meeting at UN
Headquarters in September 2000, the Millennium
Declaration sets the agenda for a new era.
Based
on the Millennium Declaration, the Member States of the United Nations have
joined to set goals in the areas of peace, security and disarmament;
development; protecting the environment; human rights, democracy and good
governance; protecting the vulnerable; meeting the special needs of Africa; and
strengthening the UN.
Following
are some of the agreed goals relating to the Millennium Declaration:
-- Peace, security and disarmament
International rule of law —
Strengthen compliance with decisions of the International Court of Justice and
provisions of the UN Charter; take concerted action against international
terrorism; redouble efforts to counter world drug problem, transnational crime;
UN and armed conflict — Give UN the
resources needed for conflict prevention, dispute resolution, peacekeeping,
peace-building and reconstruction; strengthen cooperation with regional bodies;
Disarmament — Strive to eliminate weapons
of mass destruction; call on States to consider acceding to Landmines
Convention; end illicit traffic in small arms, light weapons
--Development and poverty eradication: The Millennium Development Goals
[? – phrase not used in 2000]
Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
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
Develop a global partnership for
development
--Protecting our common environment
Reduce greenhouse gas emissions; intensify
efforts for sustainable development of forests; press for full implementation
of conventions on biological diversity and desertification; stop unsustainable
exploitation of water resources, ensuring equitable access and adequate supply;
intensify collective efforts to reduce the number and effects of natural and
man-made disasters; ensure free access to information on the human genome
Human
rights, democracy, good governance
Uphold the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights; strive for protection of
civil, political, economic, social, cultural rights for all; strengthen
States' capacity to implement principles and practices of democracy and human
rights; combat violence against women, and implement the UN Convention on
eliminating discrimination against women
Take measures to protect the human rights
of migrants, migrant workers and their families, to eliminate acts of racism
and xenophobia, and to promote greater harmony and tolerance; work collectively for more inclusive
political processes; ensure freedom of the media and the public's right of
access to information
Protecting
the vulnerable
Expand protection of civilians in complex
emergencies and strengthen burden-sharing in assistance to refugee host
countries; help all refugees and displaced persons return voluntarily in
safety; encourage full implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child
and its protocols on armed conflict, child prostitution and pornography
Meeting
the special needs of Africa
Full support for political and
institutional structures of emerging democracies and for regional and
subregional mechanisms to prevent conflict and promote stability; ensure
reliable flow of resources for peacekeeping
Take special measures for poverty
eradication, sustainable development, including debt cancellation, improved
market access, enhanced official development assistance, increased foreign
direct investment and technology transfers; help build up Africa's capacity to
tackle HIV/AIDS and other infectious diseases
Strengthening
the United Nations
Reaffirm the role of the General Assembly
as the UN's chief deliberative, policy-making organ; intensify efforts for
Security Council reform; further strengthen the Economic and Social Council;
strengthen the International Court of Justice
Encourage regular consultations and
coordination among the principal UN organs; ensure that the UN is provided, on
a timely, predictable basis, with the resources it needs to carry out its
mandate; urge the Secretariat to make best use of resources by adopting the
best management practices and technologies available; promote adherence to the
Convention on the Safety of United Nations and Associated Personnel
Ensure greater policy coherence and
cooperation between the UN, its agencies, the Bretton Woods institutions, the
World Trade Organization and other multilateral bodies; further strengthen cooperation
with the Inter-Parliamentary Union; give greater opportunities to the private
sector, non-governmental organizations and civil society in general to
contribute to UN goals and programmes…"
"….disembodied from the human rights
context and purposes in the Millennium Declaration, I would question how far
the MDGs will ultimately take us.
The international
human rights legal framework, to which all States have subscribed, must be seen
as part of the solution and the baseline commitment on development. Human
rights do not provide all of the answers, far from it, but this publication
attempts to illustrate how certain critical
gaps in the MDGs edifice can be filled through the
application of human rights standards and practices, helping us get to the
heart of the reasons for poor performance, empowering people and communities to
assert their own claims, and promoting equitable and sustainable results."
Louise Arbour
United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights
2008
The Millennium Declaration states:
"We consider certain fundamental
values to be essential to international relations in the twenty-first century.
These include:
• Freedom. Men and women have
the right to live their lives and
raise their children in dignity, free
from hunger and from the fear of violence, oppression or injustice.
Democratic and participatory governance
based on the will of the people best assures these rights.
•. Equality. No individual and
no nation must be denied the opportunity to benefit from development. The equal
rights and opportunities of women and men must be assured.
• Solidarity. Global challenges
must be managed in a way that distributes the costs and burdens fairly in
accordance with basic principles of equity and social justice. Those who suffer
or who benefit least deserve help from those who benefit most.…
• To ensure
that the benefits of new technologies, especially information and
communication technologies, in conformity with recommendations contained in the
ECOSOC 2000 Ministerial Declaration, are
available to all.
…22. We reaffirm our support for the principles of sustainable
development, including those set out in Agenda 21, agreed upon at the United
Nations Conference on Environment and Development.
….
V. Human rights, democracy and good
governance
24. We will spare no effort to promote democracy and strengthen
the rule of law, as well as respect for all internationally recognized human
rights and fundamental freedoms, including the right to development.
25. We resolve therefore:
• To respect fully and uphold the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
• To strive for the full protection
and promotion in all our countries of civil,
political, economic, social
and cultural rights for all.
• To strengthen the capacity of all
our countries to implement the principles and practices of democracy and
respect for human rights, including minority rights.
…• To work collectively for more inclusive political processes,
allowing genuine participation
by all citizens in all our countries.
• To ensure the freedom of the media
to perform their essential role and the
right of the public to have access to information. …
13. Success in meeting these objectives
depends, inter alia, on good
governance within each country. It also depends on good governance at the international level…
29. We will spare no effort to make the United Nations a more
effective instrument for pursuing all of these priorities: the fight for development for all the peoples of
the world, the fight against
poverty, ignorance…
31. We request the General Assembly to review on a regular basis
the progress made in implementing the
provisions of this Declaration, and ask the Secretary-General to issue
periodic reports for consideration by the General Assembly and as a basis for
further action.
32. We solemnly reaffirm, on this
historic occasion, that the United Nations is the indispensable common house of
the entire human family, through which we will seek to realize our universal
aspirations for peace, cooperation and development. We therefore pledge our unstinting support for these
common objectives and our determination to achieve them."
…………………………………………………..
"When
the millennium declaration was rewrittenas a set of specific goals, the baselinefor calculating the proportion to
be halved was set not at 2000, but at 1990. That meant that progress
already made could contribute to the achievement of the goal... it looks very
much as if, come 2015, the world's leaders will have failed to keep their
(watered down) promises."
Consider the treatment of the hunger
problem, under Millennium Development Goal 1. In the Millennium Declaration of
2000, 191 member states of the UN committed themselves "to halve, by the
year 2015, the proportion of the world's people . . . who suffer from
hunger." Some have assumed the idea was to reduce the proportion who are
hungry to half what it was in the year 2000. A similar commitment was made at
the World Food Summit in 1996, when a commitment was made to reducing the
number of undernourished people to half their level at that time, 1996, by no
later than 2015. On this basis, one might imagine that the Millennium people
were thinking of 1996 as the baseline year.
However the project actually uses 1990
as the baseline. Since the proportion of hungry people has been going down
until recently, setting the baseline as 1990 rather than 1996 or 2000 makes it
easier to achieve the goal of reducing the proportion by half.
While the Millennium Declaration of
2000 promised to reduce by half the proportion of the world's population that are hungry, the FAO and the Millennium
Development Project now focus on the percentage of people who are hungry in developing countries. Since developing countries have higher
population growth rates, this makes the goal easier to reach. With any given
number of hungry people, a growing population means they account for a
decreasing proportion of the population."
"Myth 4: The
Millennium Declaration established 1990 baselines.
Explanation
The one substantive
adjustment made by UN officials between the 2000 Millennium Declaration and the
2001 Road Map was to identify a 1990 baseline for the 2015 targets."
"Careful
assessments of MDG success and failure will form a critical ingredient for
any post-2015 policy breakthroughs. To be done well, these should examine
the complex pathways through which a diversity of targets were born."
"...contrast the level of
interest in the MDGs today with their relatively informal origins (and the
oft-forgotten fact that they were never formally endorsed by the UN General
Assembly)"
"by Asociacion Cubana de las Naciones Unidas (Cuban United Nations
Association) [NGO]
27 Apr 2015
...It is necessary to conclude a
genuine intergovernmental negotiation among UN member states, to create a real political
commitment, in order not to repeat the mistakes of the MDGs, that were not
created nor agreed governmentally..."
"I
commend this [OHCHR] publication to all policymakers, development practitioners
and human rights workers committed to sustainable human development and social
justice.
Louise Arbour
United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights…
After the Millennium Summit, the eight Development Goals were ....endorsed by
United Nations agencies, the World Bank, the ... (IMF) and the ...(OECD).
However, the United Nations General
Assembly explicitly mentioned and endorsed
the eight MDGs only as late as October [September]
2005. ..."
[MB note:The US claimed that the
General Assembly's mention of MDGs in 2005 referred to the Declaration's goals,
meaning that it had not endorsed the eight MDGs.]
"...Until
then it had focused (and still does)
on calling for the implementation and monitoring of all goals and measures in
the Millennium Declaration,
which go beyond development."
Claiming the Millennium Development Goals: A human rights approach
Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights
United Nations
New York and Geneva, 2008
ohchr.org/Documents/Publications/Claiming_MDGs_en.pdf
Is the report from theOffice of the High Commissioner for Human Rights correct
that the General Assembly "endorsed the eight MDGs" in 2005?
"U.N. Document Clarifies [?] Development
Goals, State's Silverberg Says
General Assembly consensus on document expected September 16
By Kathryn McConnell | Washington File Staff Writer | 16 September 2005
New York – The negotiated
final summit document expected to be adopted September 16 by the U.N. General
Assembly clarifies that the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are those agreed to by the United States and other
U.N. members in the 2000 Millennium
Declaration, says Assistant Secretary of State
Kristen Silverberg.
In an exclusive interview with the Washington File September 15,
Silverberg, who heads the State Department’s Bureau of International
Organization Affairs, said the United States regards the Millennium Declaration
– a key set of principles and objectives on an array of international issues –
as a “good product.”
She said that to reach a consensus
agreement, all countries participating in its negotiation process gave up
something they initially wanted. The document, as a result, reflects “disparate
views” of the interests of countries around the world, she said. (See related
article.)
Silverberg said the United States continues to “strongly
support” the goals it agreed to in the Millennium Declaration, such as reducing world poverty by
half by 2015 and reducing instances of HIV/AIDS.
“Sometimes people use [the term] MDGs
to mean other things, in particular of a list of targets and indicators that
were in a document the [U.N.]
secretariat produced” following the Millennium Declaration, Silverberg
said. The United States did not
negotiate that document or agree to it and neither did many other states.
It is solely a document of the secretariat, she said.
She said confusion about the U.S.
stance on the MDGs was a result of erroneous reports presented by some media
about the meaning of the term “Millennium Development Goals.”
“The outcome [final summit] document
clarifies the term MDGs, which means
goals in the Millennium Declaration,” she said.[?]
An important omission from the report from the Office of the
High Commissioner for Human Rights is that the General Assembly hasnot only "focused" on "goals
and measures" in the Millennium Declaration, but has
"reaffirmed" what it "resolved" to achieve.
Another omission is this.
It seems obvious that for democracy to function, information
from elected officials and their employees must be reasonably accurate.The information from authorities on leaders'
pledges, combined with omissions despite the Assembly calling for more
publicity for international commitments,has been inaccurate and misleading.
I am unable to understand why this is not classed as an
infringement of human rights.
