Millennium Development Goals – A strong engagement from Europe

World leaders will meet in New York at the United Nations on September 20-22 to review progress made towards achieving key global development targets in fighting poverty, reducing hunger and disease, fighting social exclusion, providing universal education, health, drinking water and a healthy environment.  Covering eight major areas, the Millennium Development Goals were agreed by the leaders of all UN member states at the Millennium summit in 2000 with a target date of 2015. They continue to be the most broadly supported, comprehensive and specific development goals the world has ever established.

With five years left to go and many countries grappling with economic downturns and facing the  multiple – food, climate change and financial – crises, the September summit presents a critical opportunity for the international community to agree on an action agenda of what needs to be done to meet the MDGs. In this the European institutions have a crucial role.

As UNDP Administrator Helen Clark pointed out recently to European Parliamentarians, “given the huge contribution of the European Union and its member states to development cooperation, the combined EU stance at the summit will have a significant bearing on its outcome.”

The UN’s team in Brussels has been focusing its partnership work with the European institutions to maintain Europe’s strong engagement in advancing on the MDG targets.

European Commission President, José Manuel Barroso underscores the significance of that joint work when he notes in his foreword to the most recent UN-EU Partnership Report, that “the partnership between the EU and the UN is an essential component in our efforts to reach the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)”. *

During its meeting on 17 June 2010, the Council of the European Union adopted its views in the form of conclusions on the summit and beyond pledging the EU’s firm commitment to achieve the MDGs globally by 2015.

EU and UN officials agree that the MDGs are achievable. Apart from a strengthened political commitment there is also a range of tried and tested policies which can ensure progress with numerous practical examples from the field as testament to this. The most recent report of the UN team in Brussels showcases a number of these within the context of the UN-EU partnership in action.

Links:

• UNDP Administrator Helen Clark’s remarks to the Extraordinary Joint Committee Meeting of the Foreign Affairs and Development Committees of the European Parliament
  (Brussels, 10 June 2010)
• Council of European Union conclusions on the Millennium Development Goals for the United nations High-level Plenary meeting in New York and beyond
  (Luxembourg, 17 June 2010)
• EU Commissioner for Development Andris Piebalgs keynote address to the UN ECOSOC High-Level Segment: Development Cooperation Forum
  (New York, 29 June 2010)
  
• Progress towards the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals: mid-term review in preparation of the UN High-Level meeting in September 2010
  Text adopted by the European Parliament (Strasbourg, 15 June 2010)

* Improving Lives – Results of partnership between the United Nations and the European Union in 2009