Millenium Development Goals
I hate harping on about Andrew Bartlett. As much as I disagree with the vast majority of what he believes, you have to give him credit. There is no way in the world that I could get away with being drunk and assaulting a woman in Parliament and still keep a senior position within my party.
Yes, cheap shot I know, but then I have never pretended to being a champion of womens rights. I prefer to be a champion of people’s rights and responsibilities. I take a more robust view on the whole thing. Real men don’t assault women. My daughter will grow up knowing her own worth and also how to box so that drunken idiots who don’t know her own worth, can find out very very quickly.
However I digress.
The reason for this post is my thoughts on the U.N. Millenium Development Goals. That is a wonderful word isn’t it, Goals. They are like Targets with excuses. Somewhat akin to Binding Targets and Voluntary Goals in the AGW community. Isn’t it interesting that it is often the same people who support the MD Goals are offended when Countries such as Australia choose to set voluntary goals for carbon reduction rather than setting targets.
So What are these wonderful Motherhood Statements that Andrew is so keen to propose.
1. Reduce by half the proportion of people living on less than a dollar a day
2. Reduce by half the proportion of people who suffer from hunger
3. Ensure that all boys and girls complete a full course of primary schooling
4. Eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education preferably by 2005, and at all levels by 2015
5. Reduce by two thirds the mortality rate among children under five
6. Reduce by three quarters the maternal mortality ratio
7. Halt and begin to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS
8. Halt and begin to reverse the incidence of malaria and other major diseases
9. Integrate the principles of sustainable development into country policies and programmes; reverse loss of environmental resources
10. Reduce by half the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water
11. Achieve significant improvement in lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers, by 2020
12. Develop further an open trading and financial system that is rule-based, predictable and non-discriminatory, includes a commitment to good governance, development and poverty reduction— nationally and internationally
13. Address the least developed countries’ special needs. This includes tariff- and quota-free access for their exports; enhanced debt relief for heavily indebted poor countries; cancellation of official bilateral debt; and more generous official development assistance for countries committed to poverty reduction
14. Address the special needs of landlocked and small island developing States
15. Deal comprehensively with developing countries’ debt problems through national and international measures to make debt sustainable in the long term
16. In cooperation with the developing countries, develop decent and productive work for youth
17. In cooperation with pharmaceutical companies, provide access to affordable essential drugs in developing countries
18. In cooperation with the private sector, make available the benefits of new technologies— especially information and communications technologies
Look at that, a veritable cornucopia of goals and dreams and desires. I particularly like the one about decent and productive work for Youth. Can I get a job there too, because sometimes I think I am wasting my time at work.
Andrew was concerned that I wasn’t a fervent crusader for the MDG’s.
Are you saying you don’t support the Millennium Development Goals, and you’d prefer to keep poverty abundant?
Frankly, there is very little in that that any normal thinking person could possibly object to. Maybe the debt relief component, but very little otherwise. Its Mothers, Apple Pie and little puppies and kittens all playing with a ball of string.
No, my problem is how they propose doing anything about it. Especially considering the endemic graft and corruption of the UN. If ever you wanted to question the validity of the UN, just take a look at Darfur. Are the decent and productive jobs listed at point 16 to be sex slaves to the UN forces?
No the one and only sure fire way to eliminate all the problems and issues facing the third world is to build a wall around it, fill it with sea water and then empty it and start again.
Not that I am proposing mass slaughter of the inhabitants of the third world, hell they are doing that well enough themselves without me or anybody having to propose it.
The greatest problem facing the people of the third world is their own leadership and personal responsibility.
There are far too many graduates of Patrice Lumumba University in positions of power from the bad old days of economic colonialism. Say what you like about the US and their impact on the third world, but the stupid ideas imported from the great big bear of Russia have done more to mire the poor in poverty than anything else.
No what the world needs is leaders to accept that they can no longer hold their amore propere so close to themselves. They need to care more about their people than they do about enriching themselves. Who wants to be king of a garbage dump.
But the people of the third world have responsibilities too. They need to hold their leadership accountable. They need to ensure that they are getting someone who will look after their interests and when they stop doing that, they need to get rid of them.