On 12 December 2014, The UN Millennium Campaign partnered with the Office of the Secretary-General’s Envoy on Youth for a special celebration event to present We the Peoples – Celebrating 7 Million Voices, a special report detailing the global results of the MY World survey for a better world.
The major report tells the story behind the MY World data and serves to share the voices of citizens around the world with the United Nations. The report aggregates results over 7 million participants in every country around the world who voted for the issues which are most important to them and their families.
“The findings of this report are crucial inputs to the new development agenda, which is to be decided by member states in September 2015,” noted UN Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson, the event’s keynote speaker.
“Today is historic as we do not have to imagine 7 million people speaking to us—“, noted Mr. Ahmad Alhendawi, the Secretary-General’s Envoy on Youth in the opening remarks of the launch event.
The votes represent the hopes and dreams of every 1 in 1,000 people on the planet. “We gather here to celebrate the 7 million people who took the UN My World Survey showing that people around the world want to be part of shaping the future” said Alhendawi. “Of course, as the Envoy on Youth, I will not miss the opportunity to celebrate more specifically that 77% of those who took the survey were youth under 30 years old.”
According to Corinne Woods, Director of the UN Millennium Campaign, the report details how the results of the MY World survey reveal important trends for the Post-2015 Development Agenda, “The existing Millennium Development Goals continue to be important, but we also see new issues which people prioritize highly, such as ‘An honest and responsive government,’ ‘Protection from crime and violence,’ and ‘Better job opportunities.’”
“We need a paradigm shift and a coming together. MY World results show there is more that unites us than divides us. Working together we can be the generation that ends poverty and preserves the planet,” added Ms. Woods.
This celebration event put faces and narratives to the personal stories behind the votes with a special interactive youth performers from New York City. The launch event, aimed to not only showcase data, but narratives behind statistics gathered during the recent Humans of MY World global tour.
The MY World global survey will continue to collect votes until the adoption of the new UN Sustainable development Agenda in September 2015. For more information and to vote in the MY World survey visit vote.myworld2015.org. To see the latest results visit data.myworld2015.org.
Ahmad Alhendawi, Corinne Woods, and the UNMC members.