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By Dr Arvind Kumar
A decade ago the world governments in 2000 under the aegis of the United Nations agreed to the 15-year antipoverty plan, which came to be known as Millennium Development Goals, or MDGs, to be achieved by 2015. However, a recent report released by the Geneva-based U.N. Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD) has stated that the United Nations is ignoring the critical role of jobs and income equality in its strategy to fight world poverty and hunger, to the detriment of developing nations.
Nevertheless, the U.N. has said it is on track to halve the number of people living on less than $1 a day by 2015, but the picture is mixed for other MDGs, particularly in the fields of health, education and the environment. Emphasizing that the people need jobs to combat poverty; the UNRISD report has called for adoption of new approaches to address mounting income inequalities. The report further observes: “Despite an ambitious agenda, the MDGs nonetheless represent a cautious approach to social development. A number of critical issues and obstacles to overcoming poverty have not been addressed.”
Let’s hope that a summit of world leaders being summoned by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon from September 20 to 22 in New York succeeds in adopting an action plan to achieve all the goals in the next five years.
