2010: no flying cars but an opportunity to get the Millennium Development Goals back on track | Oxfam International Blogs

Now that we've wrapped up our discussions on the Millennium Development Goals, I thought we would remind you what exactly we stand to gain by accomplishing these goals. We already know a great deal about the losses resulting from not achieving these goals (a billion people living on less than a dollar a day, thousands of children dying every minute and even more orphaned by AIDS, more than 700 million people not able to read or write...). But the world really could be a wonderful place if we acted along with governments to improve living conditions for those living here and throughout the world.

Remember one of our first exercises in class last year when we shared what we thought a perfect world would look like? Some of you fantasized about:

• education for everyone
• no disease or sickness
• world peace
• no hunger

We live in a world where so many great things are possible -- man can walk on the moon, we can take pictures of giant squid thousands of feet below sea level, you can have a conversation with someone in China over the internet! There's no reason why we can't overcome the obstacles of poverty, hunger, needless suffering, and lack of education.

2010: no flying cars but an opportunity to get the Millennium Development Goals back on track | Oxfam International Blogs

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MDGs: Reduce Child Mortality, Improve Maternal Health, Combat Diseases

This week we tackled quite a bit of information about the state of the world's health. What we learned is that someone's access to health services depends mostly on where he or she was born. Millions of people lack the basic necessities required for keeping them healthy: a doctor's office, affordable medicine, nutritious food, and sanitary living conditions. And as we discussed, this sad fact leads to lots of unnecessary suffering and death:

• Every minute, a woman with no medical care dies in pregnancy or childbirth
• Every hour, 300 people die of an AIDS-related illness
• Every day, 4,000 children die of diarrhea caused by dirty water

And those stats say nothing of the millions of children who die of malaria, or who are orphaned by their parents who died of AIDS. These stats don't tell us about children who never make it past the age of five because of lack of proper nutrients.

But that doesn't have to be the end of a very sad story -- this problem is big but it is not impossible to overcome! Things we take for granted, like a glass of clean water, like vaccines to protect us against deadly infections, are out of the reach for so many around the world. With a little effort by people and governments around the world, we can provide these resources for poor people. And there are several good reasons why we should feel responsible for seeing to it that this happens:

In the Universal Declaration of human rights, we are reminded that health is a human right:

Article 25 of UDHR states:

• Everyone has the right to health and well-being of himself and his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and should be protected from suffering in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other circumstances beyond their control.
• Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance.

Do you agree that governments should be expected to provide all the services described in Article 25? Does the United States provide for services such as food, housing and medical care? Who are these services provided for in this country? Who pays for them? What makes it difficult for many governments (in poor countries) to ensure the health of their citizens? (You can share your thoughts on these discussion questions in the comments section below.)

World leaders also PROMISED to reduce suffering worldwide when deciding on the Millennium Development Goals. Acknowledging that the loss of human life to these preventable causes is a human rights violation, world leaders agreed to three goals in the MDGs that would increase access to healthcare for millions of people, and decrease the number of needless deaths. There are three health-related goals in the MDGs that aim to promote the health of everyone around the world, especially in poor countries :

• GOAL 4: Reduce child mortality.
  
• GOAL 5: Improve maternal health.
  
• GOAL 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other preventable diseases.

It is important to achieve these goals because disease, malnourishment and bad health destroy lives and reduces productivity and income. People who are sick cannot go to school or work, and cannot afford to buy food, medicine or health services that can help them get better. Investing in the health of citizens is a smart investment for countries to make. Healthy citizens mean a healthy workforce to contribute to the country's production and wealth.

So then, what is needed to achieve these goals?

Health care for all is a massive challenge, but an achievable one. What’s needed is the will, and the funding. Governments of developing countries must devote more money to their health services. And rich countries like the US must solidly support them.

• Primary Health Services: People everywhere should be able to get to a doctor's office, clinic or hospital to receive medical care. However, there is a lack of hospitals and trained medical professionals to provide these services.
  
• Access to Medicine: The poorest people in the world cannot afford needed drugs – despite promises from international organizations to make medicines affordable and available to all. Campaigns targeting governments and drugs companies work to ensure developing countries get cheaper and better medicines quickly.
• Improved access to water, sanitation and hygiene: Without access to clean water and sanitation, people are constantly exposed to infections and diseases. The effects of these problems are compounded by poor hygiene -- for example, not washing hands helps spread infection.
  
• Money: Millions of children die needlessly every year because of causes that can be prevented. With education, proper nutrition, and medical care, we could stop children dying for no reason. This takes money, but if everyone chipped in, the costs would be minimal.

MDGs: Achieve Universal Primary Education and Promote Gender Equality

In this week's class we discussed the goals promoting universal primary education and gender equality. We combined the two goals (MDGs two and three) because a large part of achieving universal primary education involves educating girls, since so many of the world's illiterate and uneducated are women and girls. After watching this video, you should be able to understand why educating girls is not just important for equality sake, but for increased world development as well:

Why did the video say educating girls is so important? How is it related to reducing poverty and increasing development in poor countries?

Think about it ... what do we use education for here in the United States? An education means you will have more opportunities to work and provide for your family, right? In class we talked about how investing in women's education is a good investment because educated women are likely to have smaller families to have to provide for, they are more likely than men to spend money earned directly on their family's health, and they are less likely to marry early.

What are some of the other ways they explored that promotes equality for women?

• Globalization, they showed, provides more paid jobs for women than were ever available in the past. However, there are less paid jobs for women than there are for men, and women usually receive lower wages.
• Microcredit is another way to help women raise their status in society. Remember what microcredit is? They are small loans -- usually less than $100 -- that banks and companies give women to start their own small business. Because costs of starting a business are much lower than they are here in the US, these loans are useful for women who make jewelry, clothes or other goods to sell for a profit. This allows women to have even more earning power, and be more independent. It also has an impact on the economy of their country, because they are contributing to the wealth of that nation instead of relying on services provided by it. And again, the money women earn is much more likely to be spent on benefits to the entire family than if the money were earned by the male head of household.
• Politics is an area in which women are still lagging behind in terms of equality. Only 15% of elected officials worldwide are women.

To better illustrate the challenges women in poor countries face when seeking an education and a promise of a better future, we assigned an activity that shows the difference between education systems in America and in an African country (Namibia), and the difference between education opportunities for boys and girls in Namibia. Who do you think benefits from the freest, most accessible education opportunities -- American boys and girls, Namibian boys, or Namibian girls? Who probably has the least opportunity of receiving an education?

In our activity, where you live played the biggest factor in whether you would be able to get into college, and how much money you could be expected to make. American children, regardless of gender, are able to go to school throughout their youth. On the other hand, boys and girls in Namibia have to pay for schooling. Families in Namibia have tough choices to make when deciding which children, if any, they can afford to send to school. Why do so many families choose to send boys to schools but not their daughters?

Often, girls in poor countries are expected to help with work around the house, spending hours fetching water, cleaning, cooking and watching after young brothers and sisters. Furthermore, because there are few work opportunities for women, families feel an education is wasted on girls (but we know this isn't true). So not only did the Namibian girls in our simulation activity have a much lower earning power than their peers, they also had a much harder time competing for scholarships and getting into university.