Posted by John McArthur | Sep 25, 2009 | Tinyhttp://2mp.tw/1z | Comments
Millennium Development Goals • Millennium Villages Project • Partners • Ruhiira, Uganda
The Millennium Promise Partners’ Meeting, Obama & the MDG’s
This has been a terrific week for Millennium Promise, for the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), and – most importantly – for the hopes of communities and families living in extreme poverty around the world. On Wednesday, President Barack Obama gave his first address to the United Nations General Assembly. In conveying his administration’s vision leading up to the major MDG-focused international summit scheduled for September 2010, he eloquently described the challenged current state of our global community:
Far too many people in far too many places live through the daily crises that challenge our common humanity – the despair of an empty stomach; the thirst brought on by dwindling water; the injustice of a child dying from a treatable disease, or a mother losing her life as she gives birth.
Obama pledging support of the MDGs
Against that backdrop, President Obama made clear that the United States “will support the Millennium Development Goals, and approach next year’s Summit with a global plan to make them a reality.” And looking beyond the MDG deadline for 2015, the President asserted that, “We will set our sights on the eradication of extreme poverty in our time.”
As the first United States-based international organization established with the explicit mission of supporting the achievement of the MDGs and the end of extreme poverty, Millennium Promise is very encouraged that President Obama has reasserted the United States’ commitment to advancing this compelling and practical agenda. Indeed more than 250 people from all around the world came together in New York earlier this week to participate in the Second Annual Millennium Promise Partners’ Meeting, sharing updates on progress and mapping out action plans to advance the work of the Millennium Villages and achieve the Millennium Development Goals by 2015.
President Bingu wa Mutharika of Malawi addressing the partners
The Millennium Promise meeting convened leaders from government, business, science, philanthropy, non-governmental organizations and the United Nations to share stories of innovation, inspiration and – most importantly – action. Some of the most memorable remarks were from President Bingu wa Mutharika of Malawi, who has led a transformation of his country’s food–producing economy over the past four years. He stressed the success of the Millennium Villages and urged every country to include Millennium Villages in its national development agenda. More broadly, he asserted that:
The Millennium Promise partnership can evolve into a platform onto which we can achieve international solidarity to meet the challenge of global financial crisis, food shortages, poverty and under-development. We must all believe that the world is one and that the problems are always lighter when they are shared.
Signing ceremony for the UNAIDS/MVP agreement
In addition to the inspiring success stories from across the Millennium Villages project, we were very proud to launch major new partnerships this past Monday. One is with UNAIDS, focused on establishing the Millennium Villages as areas free of mother-to-child transmission of HIV. A second is with the Tommy Hilfiger Corporate Foundation, which is supporting a Millennium Village in Ruhiira, Uganda. A third is with Lenovo, which is contributing computer network technology around the Millennium Villages project. A fourth is with SapientNitro, which supports Millennium Promise through its world-leading creative marketing expertise. These partnerships are described in more detail on our website www.millenniumpromise.org, where we will be adding many more updates from the Partners’ Meeting over the coming week. Please do take a look and keep watching as more is posted!
The world now faces a six-year countdown to the Millennium Development Goal deadline of 2015. Coalitions spanning communities, businesses, governments and other key sectors are bringing together leadership groups that build on recent successes to ensure momentum builds where it is needed most. Millennium Promise is invigorated to do much more than just watch the clock. Guided by a spirit of impatient optimism, we are proud to collaborate with a global network of partners that are advancing path-breaking forms of action-focused partnership. Together we can ensure that the world’s poorest communities still have the opportunity to achieve the Goals, and that no effort is spared in partnering with them.
Thank you for your contributions to this partnership movement. We look forward to building on our successes together over the weeks and months ahead.
John McArthur is the CEO and Executive Director of Millennium Promise. He is based in New York. Follow John on Twitter @mcarthur
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I am writing on behalf of a group of Ithaca College students and friends that want to help in Malawi. Our frind, Grace Chiumia, (Mzuzu Malawi) was recently elected to a seat in Parliament and we want to help her constituency, Nkhata Bay West. We were investigating starting our own non profit but wonder if there is a way to work with your organization to help out in this area. Grace is a nurse and looks out for the poor and vulnerable.
Your input is helpful.
Any ideas are appreciated.
We are delighted to learn of Ithaca College’s partnership with the Parliament of Malawi. First, please see the advice offered in this comments section to the writer from the Democratic Republic of the Congo regarding strategies to launch a Millennium Village-inspired initiative. This may be relavant (and hopefully helpful!) to you, should you and Ms. Chiumia be considering starting such a project in her district. Millennium Promise currently partners with communities in both the Zomba District and the Mchinji District. As the Millennium Villages in both districts work closely are link closely to the government, we also recommend that Ms. Chiumia reach out to her colleagues in Parliament who represent these districts regarding lessons learned and advice that they may have for her own efforts. Please note that you can learn more about Millennium Promise’s work in Malawi at this web-address: http://www.millenniumpromise.org/site/PageServer?pagename=mv_main
We at D.R.CONGO we are trying to do the impossible to join your effort to attended the promise because myself as an independant journalist and also a founder of ngo working in agriculture and breeding with rural poor farmers ,i am trying to do something but lack funds to do such a work.I think that it is time to consider our little affords to set up poverity out and i think that by joining us in all your programs and assistance.We really need your help and support so all we can win the MDG’s goals.we encourage the president Obama for all its initiatives but we would like him to refuse supporting dictators in developing countries.
Millennium Promise welcomes grass root initiatives to adapt and implement the Millennium Villages’ holistic approach to meet local priorities and tackle extreme poverty. Although Millennium Promise is not a funding organization (e.g. we do not have the resources or the capacity to raise or grant funds to other organizations), we can help advocate for others’ Millennium Village-inspired initiatives among our partners and the donor community. To do so, we recommend that individuals, communities, and organizations that aspire to launch a Millennium Village-like program take the following steps: (1) build a critical mass of key supporters from community and civil society leaders, government, and the private sector; (2) work to assess what local needs and priorities are; (3) estimate the amount of funding required to meet these needs and how much can be contributed locally compared to what external resources are needed to meet the gap (remember to consider what existing resources, including infrastructure, local expertise and labor, etc. can be leveraged in support of your proposal); (4) design a management structure to oversee the initiative, including financial oversight and reporting. Capture these steps in a written a proposal that can be taken to potential supporters. Millennium Promise would be happy to review the proposal, offer feedback and advice, and help mobilize support for it. As a concluding note, government buy-in is critical to the success of the proposal, as sustainability and scalability of the initiative requires embedded public service delivery and other key interventions within government systems. To succeed, the proposal should have a designated advocate within the government.
I am writing from Nigeria. I want to congratulate Millennium Promise crew and its partners for the invaluable work they are doing; lots of lives are being positively affected and the world is becoming much more inhabitable.
However, I am being bothered by one problem. the MDGs seem to take into consideration a lot except ’special’ children of the world (those who are not like other normal children; those mentally impaired). What is being done for these innocent ones especially in the developing and underdeveloped countries? Were they (special children) considered in MDG number 2 (basic education for all by 2015)? In what ways have Millennium Promise addressed this salient issue?
Thank you for advocating on behalf of this important group of children. To address your question, the Millennium Development Goal target on education is universal enrollment for boys and girls in primary school. This means that MDGs aim to enroll every child in primary school, including those with special needs. The target cannot, therefore, be achieved without taking this group into proper consideration. To date, Millennium Promise’s work in education has focused on constructing and rehabilitating school facilities, supporting locally produced school meals programs, and boosting enrollment. We are proud to have great success with these initiatives, but believe much more needs to be done to improve the quality of instruction for all students. Our own work will increasingly take on this issue in the coming years. As the basic building blocks of primary school systems are developed and enhanced in rural communities, we hope that our efforts will facilitate school systems that can identify special needs children and design programs to help ensure that they can succeed in the classroom and beyond.
Mr Mcarthur,
I write on belhalf of the Colombian Strategy to end extreme poverty.
At the moment we are triyng to implement a similar figure from the one of the Millenuim Millages.
We develope public privat partnerships and right now we have a sponsor from the privat sector to develop an small pilot test.
I would like to have contact with someone working in the Milleium Villages Iniciative to explore the posibility of colaboration.
Please see the advice offered in this comments section to the writer from the Democratic Republic of the Congo regarding strategies to launch a Millennium Village-inspired initiative