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Secretary-General's MDG Advocay Group

Secretary General's MDG Advocacy Group

Bulletins

MDG Advocate Quarterly Update - July 2014

(This summary covers the period January – June 2014)


Highlights of MDG Advocate collaborative work


'Invest in Girls' event at Davos a success

Davos, Switzerland, 23 January 2014: At an event at the World Economic Forum, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and UN officials joined members of the MDG Advocacy Group and leaders from government, the private sector, and civil society to highlight the importance of investing in the rights and well-being of adolescent girls in order to alleviate poverty and accelerate progress on Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

International Women's Day

New York, USA, 7 March 2014: One the eve of International Women’s Day and the 58th Commission on the Status of Women, the MDG Advocates released a statement outlining ways to advance the Millennium Development Goals for women and girls. MDG Advocacy Group highlighted the importance of advancing progress for women and girls.  The signatories called on Member States to urge the Commission on the Status of Women to advance the goals set out by the world leaders in 2000 on the MDGs. They stated that International Women’s Day is an important moment to reflect on the progress made by the international community to advance the rights and well-being of women around the world as a well as an opportunity to assess the challenges and gaps in meeting the goals.

Open Letter to the G-7 on Global Partnership for Education
Brussels, Belgium, 5 June 2014 – In advance of the pledging conference, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon and members of the MDG Advocacy group called upon the G-7 to lead the global community to reach the Global Partnership’s $3.5 billion replenishment target by calling upon donor governments to renew their commitment to achieving Education for All.

Highlights from Individual MDG Advocate’s Activities and Plans

Over the years, Mukesh D. Ambani and Reliance Industries Limited has been working towards substantially improving the lives of people on a sustainable basis in India. The group is deeply involved in working with some of the poorest and most marginalized communities in India towards bridging the gap between rural and urban India and bringing in focus and scale. The organization focuses broadly across all the MDGs, especially on education, health, infrastructure and community development. Reliance has created programs in sports for development, the prevention of malnutrition in women and children, heath infrastructure support to address HIV, malaria and TB, and the conservation of biodiversity.

Philippe Douste – Blazy is leading a UN Initiative to implement to help the poorest nations improve public health by raising money for development in unconventional ways. This initiative includes levying a 10 cent tax on every barrel in oil producing countries in Africa, a tax on airline tickets in more than 90 countries and a tax on share transactions in 11 European nations. Douste-Blazy aims to tackle chronic malnutrition and address the problem of shrinking aid budgets.

Stine Bosse, as the Chairman of Child Fund Denmark and Vice-Chairman Child Fund Alliance Worldwide, has assisted Cape Verde to improve the level of education and social environment for thousands of children. All in all more than 20,000 children and a much larger number of their family members and communities have benefitted directly from assistance. The goals set have been achieved and Child Fund Denmark has initiated a gradual withdrawal, which will be completed in the next five years.

Ray Chambers via the Office of Financing the Health Millennium Development Goals and for Malaria continues to work with partners to provide guidance, support and inspiration to key stakeholders invested in human health around the world. The MDG4 Child Survival Roadmap was launched at the Advocates’ last event in Davos and at the World Economic Forum in January 2014. This plan presents a roadmap to close the MDG achievement gap in order to achieve MDG4 of 2.2 million lives saved. Other child survival interventions were planned, which include: child health weeks/days, vaccination campaigns, and healthy behavior promotion. The MDG5 Maternal/Newborn Survival Roadmap is a plan to save the lives of an additional 140,000 mothers and 250,000 newborns by the end of 2015, while also providing universal access to modern contraception methods. Finally, the office has encouraged the Nigerian Government to develop their own MDG Achievement Roadmap, which presents an 8-quarter plan to save 400,000 children’s and 20,000 mothers’ lives by the end of 2015.

Julio Frenk, Dean of the Harvard School of Public Health, and former Minister of Health of Mexico continues to lead on women, health and inequality initiatives. Some of these include participating in the High-Level Task Force for ICPD (International Conference on Population and Development), the “A Diagonal Approach to Health System Strengthening: Tackling Cancer and Chronic Diseases,” and the “Health Disparities: Global, National and Regional Perspectives.” Dean Frenk seeks to add to the discourse on not only identifying but addressing and eliminating disparities. 

Jeffrey Sachs continues to advise Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on development issues, including poverty alleviation and environmentally sustainable economic growth. He is a professor and director of the Earth Institute (EI) at Columbia University (CU), which has observer status at the African Union, Jeffrey Sachs through which he educates PhD, masters and undergraduate students to become a new generation of policy experts and practitioners in sustainable development.  His online class (MOOC) on “The Age of Sustainable Development” launched on Coursera in January 2014, and has to date over 46,000 registered students. In addition, he directs the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network (UNSDSN), and the Millennium Villages Project. The Islamic Development Bank (IsDB) has provided $29 million in financing to partner with the MVP and host country governments to scale-up the MVP in Mali, Senegal, and Uganda. He coordinates multiple other initiatives for the advancement of sustainable development. The One Million Community Health Workers Campaign will hold a joint workshop with the Ethiopian Ministry of Health in summer 2014. The Ministerial Working Group (MWG) on Scaling up of Primary Health Systems to Achieve MDG 4 and 5 projects continues in Ethiopia supporting the MoH in their efforts developing strategy for Ethiopia, 2015-2030.

Under the leadership of Chairman Ted Turner, the UN Foundation is committed to raise public attention and high-level political commitment to MDG acceleration at key international events. Ted Turner remains an active member of the Leadership Council of the UN’s Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN), and continues to provide leadership initiatives for women and girls. Recent initiatives include a joint statement by the MDG Advocates encouraging Member States to negotiate a strong outcome document that upholds all previously made commitments on women and girls, provide strong leadership, and encourage meaningful partnerships in support of the MDGs, participation in the #heforshe campaign, statements on Women’s Day 2014, and multiple other initiatives via the UN Foundation, such as Nothing But Nets, Shot@Life, GirlUp Measles & Rubella Initiative, Global Polio Eradication Initiative, and the Global Moms Challenge, as well as its support of the Secretary-General’s Every Woman Every Child multi-stakeholder movement, to mobilize support for, engage partners in, and accelerate action on MDGs 4, 5 and 6.  With our +SocialGood partners, the UN Foundation recently convened India +SocialGood in Mumbai, focusing on how the country is utilizing technology and innovative approaches to drive progress on the MDGs, including global health and access to clean water and sanitation.

Since the Tokyo International Conference for African Development ( TICAD V), Hiromasa Yonekura and Keidanren has been involved in drafting 5-year development plans with the Japanese government focused on 10 African regions, to establish 10 vocational training centers in the continent. He continues to support and finance malaria awareness, research and prevention initiatives through diverse events throughout the world. In addition, he has committed to building a health center in Myanmar in 2014, and has supported the construction of 16 school buildings in 10 African countries, with two more still in construction.

Download the current MDG Advocate QuarterlyPDF document in its entirety.

Past Summaries and Quarterly Updates

MDG Advocate Quarterly Update December 2013 : Summary

MDG Advocate Quarterly Update July 2013 : Summary and Full reportPDF document

MDG Advocate Quarterly Update March 2013 : Summary and Full reportPDF document

For further inquiries and press:
Contact: Mr. Gabo Arora, United Nations Secretariat, Tel: +1-917-770-1097, Email: arora2@un.org


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