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Millennium Development Goals Processes
Friday, February 25, 2005 11:40 AM
The Executive Director of AWID, Joanna Kerr, explains the key processes associated with the Millennium Development Goals. The eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were created in 2000 during a meeting of world leaders, and in September of 2005, leaders will once again meet at the Millennium Summit in New York. The Summit has a three part agenda: 1) reviewing achievements made towards the Millenniumm Declaration 2) discussing terrorism and security issues and 3) discussing UN reform. Kerr explains that the third Millennium Development is the promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of women, and sees the indicator for this goal as the eradication of gender disparity in primary and secondary educational institutions. This frustrates many women’s organizations because issues such as violence against women, reproductive and sexual rights, and women’s labour rights are not reflected in goal 3. Despite this, several UN agencies utilize the MDGs and Millennium Summit to advance gender equality—and the Department for Economic and Social Affairs at the UN is working to expand the scope of targets and indicators for goal 3. There are also groups working outside of the UN system—such as the Millennium Project—which has several task forces researching how to successfully achieve the eight Millennium Goals as well as gender equality. Kerr sees the top feminist priorities for 2005 as: making sure that the Beijing +10 meeting feeds into the Millennium Summit, and that issues of violence against women and reproductive rights, among many other issues, are considered by governments. Compiled from: "Demystifying the MDG's Processes," The Network of East—West Women—Polska/NEWW
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