Activity 1: Millennium Development Goals-   What are they? 

This short text gives a brief overview of what the MDGs are, and why we need them.

Millennium Development Goals

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are eight goals that the United Nation countries (which include the UK) have agreed to try and achieve in the developing world by the year 2015. These goals are:

Goal 1: Reduce poverty

Goal 2: Educate every child

Goal 3: Provide equal chances for girls and women

Goal 4: Reduce the number of babies & children who die

Goal 5: Ensure safe and healthy motherhood

Goal 6: Fight infectious diseases

Goal 7: Clean up the environment

Goal 8: Share responsibility for making the world a better place.

Why do we need them?

·        A child dies every 3 seconds because of poverty

·        Healthcare  to make childbirth safer would cost about $12 billion a year which is the same amount of money that people in the UK and the US spend on perfume

·        Worldwide more than 10 million children die each year before they reach the age of five, almost all of them in developing countries. In fact, 90% of under-five deaths occur in just 42 countries.

·        Half the world – nearly 3 billion people – live  on less than 2 dollars a day (approx £1.20 )

·        There are 103 million children not in school. Most of these are in developing countries and 57% of them are girls.

·        More than half a million women die during pregnancy or childbirth each year. In Ethiopia 1 in 14 women die of complications or illnesses during pregnancy and childbirth. In the UK only 1 in 6000 women die for this reason

·        In 2003 about 8,000 people died each day from AIDs. About 1 million people die from malaria each year, and about 2 million people die from tuberculosis (TB).

·        The amount of money needed to pay for all children to get basic schooling is about $10 billion a year – less than the money that the population of the US spends on ice cream!

·        Two thirds of the 876 million people who can’t read and write are women.

Did you know about the MDGs before reading this?  What is your reaction to this text? Was there anything in particular which surprise or shocked you?