Profiteers at counter purposes with human need peddle cells, not privies

Sudanese woman
carries water home

Baffling (or is it?): Why Third World under-developing countries remain underdeveloped ─ or worse

Re-reporting, editing, brief comment by 

Carolyn Bennett

Canon of profiteers: profit at all costs holds back human progress

S

ix billion of the world’s seven billion people have mobile phones. But only 4.5 billion have access to toilets or sanitary latrines, the United Nations reported on World Water Day March 22. 

Woman in Northern India
bathes at public pump

Dehumanizing human beings

Some 2.5 billion people, mostly in rural areas of Asia and Africa, have no access to proper sanitation. In the twenty-first century, 1.1 billion people have no choice but to defecate in the open.

“Let’s face it,” UN Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson says, “this is a problem that people do not like to talk about. But ─

It goes to the heart of ensuring good health, a clean environment and fundamental human dignity for billions of people – and achieving the Millennium Development Goals.

R

eview: the eight UN Millennium Development Goals for 2015:

1. Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
2. Achieve universal primary education
3. Promote gender equality and empower women
4. Reduce child mortality
5. Improve maternal health
6. Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases
7. Ensure environmental sustainability
8. Develop a global partnership for development

Woman seeks water
from karez at
Piskandi Village
Northern Iraq

Developing countries never develop

But nearing 2015, countries of South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, some 20 countries, account for more than 80 percent of the global problem of open defecation. These countries have the 

• Highest incidence of death among the under-five-year-olds;

• High levels of malnutrition and poverty; and

• Large disparities in wealth

Women and girls are hardest hit. Lack of sanitation is particularly detrimental to women and girls, the UN reports. Women and girls who have to leave their homes to find a place to urinate or defecate are vulnerable to sexual violence. The lack of toilets in schools impedes girls’ access to education.

What if corporate canon changed?

The head of one non-governmental organization, WaterAid, which focuses on water and sanitation, said, “Few interventions would have greater impact on the lives of women and girls than addressing the health problems caused by poor sanitation and hygiene.”

Little girls carrying watercross rice field
after heavy rains

The United Nations says investing in good sanitation is a good investment. Such investment “produces a good return: Every dollar spent on sanitation brings a $5.50 return by keeping people healthy and productive.”

A

pproaching 2015, the United Nations reports, however, that the target in the MDGs of at least halving the proportion of people without access to sanitation ─ and this is a small order, achievable but for countering profit motives  ─ has “far to go.”

This means that the goal will not be achieved without a change in ethos and canon, political will, change of heart. A conviction that all of us are Africa and Asia and their well-being is our well-being,  that we are not islanded and apart. 

Delivering water in
Sudan

No land an island no people apart.

Surely, I am not the only person who believes this ─ that we can do better if we alter the course of our thinking and acting, our sense of being among peoples coexisting in world society. I think the United Nations tries in a variety of special days, celebrations and conferences to help us sense this “oneness.”

This year has been designated “International Year of Water Cooperation.” Friday March 22 was “World Water Day.”

Sources and notes

“More people have mobile phones than toilets – UN” (AlertNet, Lisa Anderson), March 22, 2013, http://www.trust.org/alertnet/news/more-people-have-mobile-phones-than-toilets

UN Millennium Development Goals

In September of the year 2000, leaders of 189 countries met at the United Nations in New York and endorsed the Millennium Declaration, a commitment to work together to build a safer, more prosperous and equitable world.

The Declaration was translated into a roadmap setting out eight time-bound and measurable goals to be reached by 2015, known as the Millennium Development Goals

Eight UN Millennium Development Goals for 2015

1. Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
2. Achieve universal primary education
3. Promote gender equality and empower women
4. Reduce child mortality
5. Improve maternal health
6. Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases
7. Ensure environmental sustainability
8. Develop a global partnership for development

http://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/mdgoverview.html

For more information, please visit: www.un.org/millenniumgoals

http://www.un.org/en/mdg/summit2010/pdf/List%20of%20MDGs%20English.pdf

The United Nations reports that the Millennium Development Goal of halving the proportion of people without access to improved sources of water has been met but

The target to halve the proportion of people without access to sanitation still has “far to go.”

A call to action issued by U.N. Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson aims at a 2025 goal of improving hygiene, better managing of   human waste and waste-water, and eliminating the practice of open defecation.

“Ending open defecation,” says United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) deputy executive director Marin Mogwanja, “will contribute to a 36 percent reduction in diarrhea,” a condition that kills three quarters of a million under-five-year-old children every year.”

 

World Water Day March 22

World Water Day is held annually on March 22 as a means of focusing attention on the importance of freshwater and advocating for the sustainable management of freshwater resources.

An international day to celebrate freshwater was recommended at the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED).  The United Nations General Assembly responded by designating March 22, 1993, as the first World Water Day.

E

ach year, World Water Day highlights a specific aspect of freshwater. In 2013, in reflection of the International Year of Water Cooperation, World Water Day is also dedicated to the theme of cooperation around water and is coordinated by UNESCO in collaboration with UNECE and UNDESA on behalf of UN-Water. http://www.unwater.org/water-cooperation-2013/events/world-water-day/en/

2013 International Year of Water Cooperation

In December 2010, following the proposal initiated by Tajikistan [a country lying in the heart of Central Asia, bordered by Kyrgyzstan on the north, China on the east, Afghanistan on the south, and Uzbekistan on the west and northwest] and submitted by a group of countries, the United Nations General Assembly declared 2013 ─  the United Nations International Year of Water Cooperation (Resolution A/RES/65/154).

T

he United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) was appointed by UN-Water to lead the preparations for both the 2013 International Year of Water Cooperation and the World Water Day, in collaboration with the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) and with the support of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA), the UN-Water Decade Program on Capacity Development (UNW-DPC) and the UN-Water Decade Program on Advocacy and Communication (UNW-DPAC).

UN-Water called upon UNESCO to lead the 2013 International Year of Water Cooperation in view of the organization’s multi-dimensional mandate in the realm of natural and social sciences, culture, education and communication, and its significant and long-standing contribution to the management of the world’s freshwater resources. http://www.unwater.org/water-cooperation-2013/water-cooperation/en/

IMAGES

http://www.flickr.com/photos/unworldwaterday/8476002418/

UNESCO Béatrice Petit, Aerial view of Assouan dam Egypt water coop 2013

© Dale Lightfoot, 2010, Woman seeking water from the karez at Piskandi Village in northern Iraq....

© UN Photo/Milton Grant, A young woman pumps water from a well in the lowlands area of Eritrea.

© UN Photo/Tim McKulka, A Sudanese woman carries water home in a plastic container.

Delivering water in Sudan - All rights reserved, Uploaded on Feb 15 2013

© Kate Holt: During the drought last year many people died. Eyanai, a young boy, et.al  ...

UN Photo/Martine Perret, Little girls cross a rice field after heavy rains carrying water in plastic containers.

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Bennett's books are available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY] • See also: World Pulse: Global Issues through the eyes of Women: http://www.worldpulse.com/ http://www.worldpulse.com/pulsewire http://www.facebook.com/#!/bennetts2ndstudy

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Literacy is insufficient qualifier for goodness

Today is celebrated International Literacy Day

By Carolyn Bennett

“Literacy,” UNESCO writes, “contributes to peace as it brings people closer to attaining individual freedoms and better understanding the world, as well as preventing or resolving conflict. The connection between literacy and peace can be seen by the fact that in unstable democracies or in conflict-affected countries it is harder to establish or sustain a literate environment.

“Education brings sustainability to all the development goals, and literacy is the foundation of all learning. It provides individuals with the skills to understand the world and shape it, to participate in democratic processes and have a voice, and also to strengthen their cultural identity.”   

In 2000, 189 nations made a promise to free people from extreme poverty and multiple deprivations. This pledge turned into the eight Millennium Development Goals.

UN Millennium Development Goals Eight Goals for 2015

1. 1 Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
2. 2 Achieve universal primary education
3. 3 Promote gender equality and empower women
4. 4 Reduce child mortality

1. 5 Improve maternal health
2. 6 Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases
3. 7 Ensure environmental sustainability
4. 8 Develop a global partnership for development

But these worthy goals will NEVER be achieved as long as smart, educated, literate people do terribly bad things to the world’s lands, institutions and peoples.

 

Why is Literacy important?” UNESCO asks and answers in celebration of International Literacy Day.

“Literacy is a human right, a tool of personal empowerment and a means for social and human development. Educational opportunities depend on literacy.

“Literacy is at the heart of basic education for all, and essential for eradicating poverty, reducing child mortality, curbing population growth, achieving gender equality and ensuring sustainable development, peace and democracy. There are good reasons why literacy is at the core of Education for All (EFA).

A good quality basic education equips pupils with literacy skills for life and further learning; literate parents are more likely to send their children to school; literate people are better able to access continuing educational opportunities; and literate societies are better geared to meet pressing development.”

 

YES, BUT

Does literacy or academic credentials, any more than religion —

… [t]each people right from wrong

… [t]each people how to treat one another

… [t]each people how to live in harmony and cooperation, in respect, nonviolently in caring and conversation with the whole world: all of its differences, all of its inhabitants?

I wish I thought so, but I don’t. If I ever did, I surely do not today.

 

Tony Blair, former UK PM

George W. Bush former U.S. President

Literate, educated, bad people

In the United States’ highest levels of governmental leadership and influence are graduates of some of the most prestigious universities: Chicago, Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Princeton. These people are “learned,” highly literate, schooled (if not educated) beyond most people’s imagination; powerful clubs and corporate networks reinforce their literacy and self-importance.

Foreign Relations USA Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama

Nevertheless, these mostly men are killers. If they know right from wrong, they act as if they don’t.

Former USA SOS  Condoleezza Rice

These same people, famous, infamously famous for claiming themselves followers, adherents, practicers of one or another religion or religious tradition; infamously famous for proclaiming the “rights” of pieces of flesh, fetuses, “únborns”; infamously famous for proclaiming personal “rights” to enter marriage (a thoroughly archaic and oppressive institution) – these same people are notorious bullies, terrorizers and torturers, killers and destroyers.

They destroy with flagrant impunity not only the lands and institutions and peoples of places far away from the shores of the United States, people who have done absolutely no harm to the United States. In the process of wave upon wave of destruction, these mostly men undermine and destroy international law.

Susan Rice at UN

No space, no people escape. In the United States, these erudite, literate, educated men dig a swath of devastation deep and wide, right through the U.S. domestic laws and structures and institutions and people. These are bad people.

Literacy, education insufficient

David Cameron, UK PM

On the other hand, I have known people who could not read or write but who knew and acted as if they knew right from wrong. They knew how to treat other human beings and they treated them with honor and respect and caring — caring as equal among equals.

I am all for literacy but I know that literacy alone—and depending too on what a person does with his or her literacy or education — is not enough. Nor does achievement of literacy or education make good people (people who do no harm) or caring people (nonviolent in practice and advocacy), honorable and just people.

I’m sure UNESCO knows this. But sometimes people (e.g., NGOs, nonprofits, UN agencies, et.al.) and are blinded by their focus: invested in narrow lens, in the institutionalization of and fundraising for their advocacy, in their own perpetuation so much so that they fail to see and incorporate into their thinking broader contexts and realities. They lose sight of or deliberately set aside achievement of interrelated goals: peace as cessation of war and aggression; elimination of poverty; reinstatement of international law; ensuring nations’ sovereignty, ending invasions, occupation; ending torture, prosecuting torturers and others who abuse human rights; promoting all of these and democratic practice among all people, not just people of the global south.  

Sources and notes

Literacy and Peace

The theme of International Literacy Day 2012 is Literacy and Peace, the theme “adopted by the United Nations Literacy Decade (UNLD) to demonstrate the multiple uses and value that literacy brings to people.”

For more than forty years UNESCO “has been celebrating International Literacy Day by reminding the international community that literacy is a human right and the foundation of all learning,” says. UNESCO Director General Irina Bokova.

http://www.unesco.org/new/en/education/themes/education-building-blocks/literacy/literacy-milestones/

http://www.unesco.org/new/en/unesco/events/prizes-and-celebrations/celebrations/international-days/literacy-day/

 



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Bennett's books are available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY] • See also: World Pulse: Global Issues through the eyes of Women: http://www.worldpulse.com/ http://www.worldpulse.com/pulsewire http://www.facebook.com/#!/bennetts2ndstudy

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When super-powered minorities take more than their share

A related report

Majorities go wanting; inequality unjustified, unfair, man-made

A timely report by Africa Progress Panel “Jobs, Justice and Equity — seizing opportunities in times of global change.”

Reports are fine but they go only as far as reports go. Then what?

Notes, editing, commentary

By Carolyn Bennett

 Progress overall “remains too slow and too uneven,” Kofi Annan says in the foreword to the 2012 Africa Progress Report.

Too many Africans remain caught in downward spirals of poverty, insecurity and marginalization.

Too few people benefit from the continent’s growth trend and rising geo-strategic importance.

Too much of Africa’s enormous resource wealth remains in the hands of narrow elites — increasingly, foreign investors — without being turned into tangible benefits for [Africa’s] people.

Africa Progress Panel , et.al. 
Africa Progress Report publisher 

“When assessing nations, we tend to focus too much on political stability and economic growth at the expense of social development, rule of law and respect for human rights.”

While “not all inequalities are unjust, the levels of inequality across much of Africa are unjustified and profoundly unfair. Extreme disparities in income are slowing the pace of poverty reduction and hampering the development of broad-based economic growth.

“Disparities in basic life-chances – for health, education and participation in society – are preventing millions of Africans from realizing their potential, holding back social and economic progress in the process.

“Growing inequality and the twin problems of marginalization and disenfranchisement are threatening the continent’s prospects and undermining the very foundations of its recent success.”

Careless Chasm of inequality

Echoing current events, the Africa Progress Panel, publisher of the report, says that across the world social movements are rising, societies are contesting what they view as “unacceptable levels of inequality.”

Painfully significant in the 2012 Africa Progress Report is that Africa’s “wealth disparities are among the biggest in the world.”

Another report

Twenty-four countries in Africa have higher inequality scores (measured by the Gini index’s higher index equaling greater inequality) than China’s 42 inequality score. In Mozambique, Kenya and Zambia, the Gini index is between 45 and 55. The inequality indexes for Botswana and South Africa exceed 60.

Sub-Saharan Africa’s “poorest 20 percent … typically receive 6 percent or less of national income.”  In Nigeria (home to Africa’s largest population), “the poorest 20 percent receive only 4 percent of national income, while the wealthiest 20 percent receive 53 per cent.”  Two-thirds of Nigerians are estimated to live below the poverty line.

In most cases the poorest 40 percent “receive less than 15 percent.” In many of Africa’s countries, the pattern of economic growth reinforces these inequalities.  Countries such as Kenya and Tanzania “have reduced poverty only modestly, despite the strong economic growth reported in national income accounts.”  Ethiopia and Senegal among other countries “have a stronger track record. Evidence from Rwanda, based on household surveys, “illustrates that a combination of robust economic growth and reduced inequalities can act as a powerful accelerant for poverty reduction.”  

Inequality slows the reduction of poverty and social disparities put the brakes on progress toward meeting UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) other than poverty, the report says.  “High levels of inequality act as a brake on growth, limiting the potential for development of markets and investment.”

Hunger: little change

More than one-third of child deaths in Africa are linked to malnutrition.

The estimated prevalence of undernourishment in Africa (in the years 1990-92 to 2006-08) “fell only from 31 percent to 27 percent.”

The proportion of children registered as underweight, in the 20-year period ending in 2009, “fell from 27 percent to 22 percent.”

An estimated 35 percent of Africa’s children are stunted, short height for their age, a condition that is largely irreversible by the age of two.  

Disease: little change

African inhabitants make up “the vast majority of the one million people killed each year by malaria.”  Children and pregnant women account for most of the victims of this disease.

Somali mother and child

Infant mortality rates for the poorest 20 percent in Nigeria are more than 50 percent higher than for the richest 20 percent. In many countries, living in rural areas magnifies the risk of infant death.”

My sense is that people don’t want charity, a kind of charity that is characteristically doled out by self-important self-centered people cashing in at other people's expense.

Man-made misery
U.S. drones continually
bomb, displace, destabilize
Somalis, Yemenis, Iraqis,
Afghans, Pakistanis, Ugandans ...

People want their fair share, their lives not interfered with by thieves and plunderers, fake humanitarians, proselytizers, and violent interventionists — left to find their own way, seeking equal partners where they choose, developing as they see fit. People have a right to their chance, their fair share; but the world order as it stands is obstructing their progress.

Millennium Development Goals

Basic rights to health, education, shelter and security for every human being on the planet

The current UN Secretary-general Ban Ki-moon has said, “Eradicating extreme poverty continues to be one of the main challenges of our time” and that ending it requires combined efforts of all sectors, private and public.

“The Millennium Development Goals,” he says, “set time-bound targets by which progress in reducing income poverty, hunger, disease, lack of adequate shelter and exclusion — while promoting gender equality, health, education and environmental sustainability — can be measured.”  Ban Ki-moon acknowledges that these Goals are ambitious but they are also “feasible and set the course for the world’s efforts to alleviate extreme poverty by 2015.”

Why? Because we are one.

Mutually responsible

How?  By working together toward a common end – “making sure that human development reaches everyone, everywhere.”

Or is this just too much to ask of mere human beings? 

I don’t think so. I think we can because we are human beings and in that we are one.   

Sources and notes

“Jobs, Justice and Equity” Africa Progress Report 2012: “Seizing opportunities in times of global change,” Africa Progress Report 2012, May 17, 2012, http://www.africaprogresspanel.org/files/2913/3725/5551/APP_AR_2012_May17low-res_4web.pdf

www.africaprogresspanel.org

The Africa Progress Report is the key publication of the Africa Progress Panel and its purpose is to provide an overview of the progress Africa has made over the previous year.

The report draws on the best research and analysis available on Africa and compiles it in a refreshing and provocative manner.

Through the report, the Panel recommends a series of policy choices and actions for international partners and civil society organizations with vested interests in Africa and African policy makers who have primary responsibility for Africa’s progress.

The members of the Africa Progress Panel are:

• Kofi Annan, Chair of the Africa Progress Panel, a Nobel Laureate, and former UN Secretary-general
• Michel Camdessus, former managing director of the International Monetary Fund
• Peter Eigen, founder and chair of the Advisory Council Transparency International and chair of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative
• Bob Geldof, musician, business owner, founder and chair of Band Aid, Live Aid and Live8, co-founder of DATA and ONE advisor and advocate
• Graça Machel, president of the Foundation for Community Development and founder of New Faces New Voices
• Linah Kelebogile Mohohlo, governor of the Bank of Botswana
• Olusegun Obasanjo, former president of Nigeria
• Robert Rubin, co-chair of the board of the Council on Foreign Relations and former Secretary of the United States Treasury
• Tidjane Thiam, chief executive officer of Prudential Plc.
• Muhammad Yunus, economist, Nobel Laureate, and founder of Grameen Bank

Africa Progress Panel, P.O. Box 157, 1211 Geneva 20, Switzerland, info@africaprogresspanel.org; www.africaprogresspanel.org

http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/bkgd.shtml

MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS

“If these goals are achieved, world poverty will be cut by half, tens of millions of lives will be saved, and billions more people will have the opportunity to benefit from the global economy.”

Adopted by world leaders in 2000 and set to be achieved by 2015, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) provide concrete, numerical benchmarks for tackling extreme poverty in its many dimensions.  “The MDGs also provide a framework for the entire international community to work together toward a common end – making sure that human development reaches everyone, everywhere.

The eight Millennium Development Goals

Goal 1: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger

 Goal 2: Achieve universal primary education

Goal 3: Promote gender equality and empower women

Goal 4: Reduce child mortality

Goal 5: Improve maternal health

Goal 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases

Goal 7: Ensure environmental sustainability

Goal 8: Develop a Global Partnership for Development (http://web.undp.org/mdg/basics.shtml)

http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/poverty.shtml

Africa: Inequality Dooms 76 Million Children in Continent” (Desie Heita), May 15, 2012,

http://allafrica.com/stories/201205150590.html

“Africa: Inequality Threatens Continent's Growth, May 15, 2012, http://allafrica.com/stories/201205150654.html

Images

http://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/librarypage/hdr/africa-human-development-report-2012/
http://www.africaprogresspanel.org/en/about/


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Bennett's books are available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY] • See also: World Pulse: Global Issues through the eyes of Women: http://www.worldpulse.com/ http://www.worldpulse.com/pulsewire http://www.facebook.com/#!/bennetts2ndstudy

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Ponder children instead of bickering, text burning

Eighty percent of the world’s 14 million refugees are women and children Re-reporting, editing by Carolyn Bennett

Eradicating extreme poverty continues to be one of the main challenges of our time…The Millennium Development Goals set time-bound targets by which progress in reducing income- poverty, hunger, disease, lack of adequate shelter and exclusion — while promoting gender equality, health, education and environmental sustainability — can be measured. The Millennium Development Goals also embody basic human rights — the rights of each person on the planet to health, education, shelter and security. Though ambitious, they are feasible. [United Nations Secretary-General BAN Ki-moon, http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/bkgd.shtml].

“AGAINST ALL ODDS” leads this year’s “Progress for Children” report. In this foreword, UNICEF Executive Director Anthony Lake tells a girl’s story.

A girl child born in one of the poorest places in the world, probably in sub-Saharan Africa—compared with a child growing up in one of the wealthiest countries—was 10 times likelier to die during the first month of her life. Compared with a child growing up in the richest quintile [upper fifth] of her own country:

• She was two times less likely to have been born to a mother who received antenatal care; three times less likely to have come into the world with a skilled attendant present.
• She was nearly two times less likely to be treated for pneumonia; about one-and-a-half times less likely to be treated for diarrhea – two of the biggest reasons she was also more than twice as likely to die within the first five years of life.
• She was nearly three times more likely to be underweight; twice as likely to be stunted.
• She was more than one-and-a-half times less likely to be vaccinated for measles; about half as likely to be treated for malaria or to sleep under an insecticide-treated net.
• She was around two thirds as likely to attend primary school; far less likely to attend secondary school than if she lived in a nation with greater resources.

Against all odds, she survived. But having survived, when her life is placed beside the life of a child in the richest quintile —

• She is three times likelier to marry during her adolescence
• More than two times less likely to know how to protect herself from HIV and AIDS
• More than 300 times likelier over the course of her lifetime — compared with a girl in an industrialized nation — to die during pregnancy and childbirth

The challenges she faces after surviving childhood have potential for deepening the spiral of despair and perpetuating the cycle of poverty that stacked overwhelming odds against her in the first place. This is the life of one child.

Every day approximately 24,000 children under the age of five perish. Millions more are subjected daily to the same deprivations, and worse — especially if they are girls. Especially if they suffer disabilities. Especially if they are from minority or indigenous groups.

UNICEF’s ‘Progress for Children’ report this year reveals that in the reach toward meeting the United Nations Millennium Development Goals by the year 2015, the very poor are falling farther and farther behind.

• Compared with the richest 20 percent of households, mortality rates for children under the age of five are, on average, more than twice as high for the poorest 20 per cent of households.
• The poorest children are twice as likely to be underweight.
• Girls still have the hardest time receiving an education, particularly at the secondary level.

The report finds that while most developing countries are steadily advancing toward the MDGs, many sub-Saharan Africa and South Asian countries among developing countries are not advancing toward the MDGs.

Regions of sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia [areas of conflict and invasion, exploitation, plunder and occupation] contain more than three-quarters of the 100 million primary school-aged children not attending school. These regions also have the highest rates of child marriage, the lowest level of birth registration, and the most limited health care coverage.

At greatest risk are orphaned children, children with disabilities, children from ethnic minorities, and exploited and trafficked children.

Rural disparities, deepening poverty

Of the 884 million people without access to improved drinking water sources worldwide, 84 percent live in rural areas. Between urban and rural populations, disparities persist.

Other critical factors obstructing the reach of assistance for the very poor are increasingly challenging humanitarian environments, climate change, global financial crises, rapid urbanization.

In the year 2000, world leaders adopted the UN Millennium Declaration committing their nations to make the world a more equitable place and setting out a series of time-bound targets known as Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Every year, UNICEF’s ‘Progress for Children’ report monitors progress towards these targets.

Sources and notes
UNICEF Executive Director Anthony Lake in foreword to “Progress for Children” report
“‘Progress for Children’ report sheds new light on achieving Millennium Development Goals, Focus on equity” (Chris Niles), http://www.unicef.org/childsurvival/index_55896.html


Report
PROGRESS FOR CHILDREN: Achieving the MDGs with Equity, Number 9, September 2010, Published by UNICEF-Division of Communication, 3 United Nations Plaza, New York, NY 10017, USA, Website: www.unicef.org, Email: pubdoc@unicef.org
http://www.unicef.org/publications/files/Progress_for_Children-No.9_EN_081710.pdf


Millennium Declaration
The historic promise made by 189 world leaders, signatories of the Millennium Declaration at the United Nations Millennium Summit in 2000, agreed to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The MDGs are an eight-point road map with measurable targets and clear deadlines for improving the lives of the world’s poorest people. World leaders have agreed to achieve the MDGs by 2015.


UN Millennium Development Goals
MDG 1: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
MDG 2: Achieve universal primary education
MDG 3: Promote gender equality and empower women
MDG 4: Reduce child mortality
MDG 5: Improve maternal health
MDG 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases
MDG 7: Ensure environmental sustainability
MDG 8: Promote global partnership
http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/global.shtml
http://www.endpoverty2015.org/about


UNICEF
The United Nations in December 1946 created the UN Children’s Fund (or United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund). After World War II, European children were facing famine and disease and UNICEF provided food, clothing and health care for these children. In 1953, UNICEF became a permanent part of the UN.


Today UNICEF works through country programs and National Committees in 190 countries and is part of the Global Movement for Children – a broad coalition dedicated to improving the life of every child. UNICEF upholds the Convention on the Rights of the Child and works to assure equality for those who are discriminated against, girls and women in particular. UNICEF also works for the Millennium Development Goals and for the progress promised in the United Nations Charter [http://www.unicef.org/about/who/index_introduction.html].