Millennium Development Goals (MDG) - Fall 2013

U.N. Millennium Development Goals. The UN renewed commitments to achieving the Millennium Development Goals by 2015 and to set out concrete plans and practical steps for action.

1. Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger

[1] The Poverty-Environment Initiative

According to this article, there are more than a billion people living in “extreme” poverty all over the world! The article states that there is a correlation between poverty and dependence on natural resources, like a river for drinking water and bathing because they don’t have showers and bottled water. There is hope though! A program called Poverty-Environment Initiative has been created in these third world nations to improve the conditions for the poor. This program insures that work doesn’t go unnoticed, as in unpaid. Poor people in Africa could soon be getting paid to do everyday chores. This could be extremely successful in that it provides hope in what seems like a hopeless environment. The technology behind the Poverty-Ennvironment Initiative requires states to come together to form a path to a better tomorrow for the poor!

[2] Celebrities Fight Hunger

This is a very brief article about the powers the celebrities have. Big name celebrities like George Clooney and Hugh Jackman are the faces of various charity groups designed to help the poor. Celebrities can use their influence to get their fans interested in donating to poor Africans in Africa. There is an “act” link right on the site that provides many tips on what we can do right now to help. Examples would be not to throw away food that hasn’t gone bad, reduce food portions, and eat smarter. And judging from the pictures of celebrities with the Africans, there is great success; tons of kids laughing and smiling with Bono is nothing short of achieving the goal of feeding the poor! The internet gives us the chance to actually see a picture of what our actions can do to help the poor. We can donate electronically to these organizations with the technology that is The World Wide Web!

[3] How Not To Help Africans

This article is more of an example of what won’t help poverty at all. The frontman for The United States has stated that Africans shouldn’t be allowed to have technology that we have because the world would “boil over” if they did. Luxuries such as the air conditioning simply could not be tolerated in Africa as it would somehow infringe on our precious way of life. So, Africans, in the mean time, simply switch off waving homemade fans made of tree branch at each other so the rest of the world will not be disturbed. Keep living in shacks so wood will not be wasted on unnecessary houses. Pretty silly argument, right? Instead, the world should chip on cutting down on their standard of living so maybe we can spread the love to lesser nations. Eat less, drive less, walk more, use less electicity, use less resources so we can share with Africa!

4 http://www.worldexpertise.com/Engineering_and_the_Millennium_Development_Goals.htm

This article deals with ways in which the application of science, technology and innovation (STI) are being used to help reach the goal of eradicating extreme poverty and hunger by 2015.

STI is a key element of economic growth. This growth can lead to prosperity to much of the country. The most affected areas of development by STI are human health, agriculture, and energy. Greater output of workers and higher crop yields are a result of these technological elements. This creates higher salaries and more efficient processes and less waste.

5. http://www.unfpa.org/upload/lib_pub_file/203_filename_pds10.pdf

This article shows data on how the reduction of population growth and greater access to education and technology can help meet the goals set out by the Millennium Development. By empowering women, women are key to achieving this goal. Women having a greater access to education cannot just lead to higher wages, but they also help reduce births. Contraceptive education helps in achieving this goal.

6. http://www.indexmundi.com/uganda/millennium-development-goals.html

This article deals with Africa specifically in the goal to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger. Information and communication technologies (ICT) is a key driver to socio-economic improvement. They have proven that computers and microelectronics are working to help with the issue of poverty and hunger. The internet is becoming one of the most important ICT. The internet is becoming more available to lower class individuals in Africa. This is helping with education, jobs, and health. The use of ICT’s are becoming a key driver to reaching these goals.

I chose to the goal that talks about poverty and ways to end hunger around the world. It is really sad and depreesing to know how many people around us die just because they can't afford food and have nothing to feed their children. According to the research, "Among the Millennium Development Goals which the United Nations has set for the 21st century, halving the proportion of hunger people in the world is top of the list. Whereas good progress was made in reducing chronic hunger in the 1980s and the first half of the 1990s, hunger has been slowly but steadily rising for the past decade." Technology has done a good progress to help solve and end this situation. As wells as genetically engineered food, "Nearly a million children die every year because they are weakened by Vitamin A deficiencies and an additional 350,000 go blind. Golden rice, said Time, will be a godsend for the half of humanity that depends on rice for its major staple. Merely eating this rice could prevent blindness and death." They are keeping up with the work to end poverty and help those children who suffer hunger and poverty.

http://www.psmag.com/business-economics/technology-wont-solve-hunger-65847/

http://www.hippocratesinst.org/nutrition/can-gmos-help-end-world-hunger

http://www.ffl.org/emergency-relief/world-hunger/

8.) For my midterm project, I chose poverty and hunger. For me, this is something that I too help to fight by donating food or money to soup kitchens, or by physically helping out with other members of my family. In terms of technology, and how its affecting the amount of food we produce, there have been many amazing aspects of progress that have been made. For example, Genetically engineered food has made it possible for crops to be bigger, more flavorful, and have a greater amount of nutrients. Not only does this affect people around us directly, but also third-world countries that we provide aid to. In terms of now, I personally don’t think that enough is being done to spread the awareness of world hunger. According to un.org, about 840 million people go hungry everyday. From what I see, the food that we throw away on a daily basis could feed a lot of that 840 million. Its horrible how people would let other people die only because they couldn’t afford any food to eat.

http://www.stophungernow.org/

http://www.actionagainsthunger.org/

http://www.bread.org/hunger/

9 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/92883/icode/ The article is written about the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nation, also known as FAO, on helping to solve goal number 1, "Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger," of Millenium Development Goals by 2015. Many farmers in Kenya are facing problems within their crops because of droughts; however, FAO is helping Kenyan farmers by terracing and dam construction. Through dam construction farmers will be able to better perserve rain water, and through terracing soil will not wash away. http://www.micahchallenge.org/beinformed/mdgs/mdg1-hunger Action Against Hunger, or AAH, is an organization that works on an international level to end child hunger. With over 30 years of history fighting against child malnutrition, Action Against Hunger is one of the leading organizations for goal number 1, "Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger." One of the main areas that AAH focuses on is water and sanitation. Throught he technology of storing water during emergencies, and creating new wells, irrigation systems, and accessing natural resources AAH is able to help provide a clean access to safe drinking water.

http://www.unicef.org/mdg/poverty.html UNICEF, also known as the United Nations Children's Fund, is a program funded and founded by the United Nations. Around 2005, the new direction of UNICEF had a goal to put more focus of UNICEF into the Millenium Developmen Goals by 2015, and specifically goal number one. UNICEF helps goal number 1 by providing the technologies that health care provides. According to this article about 270 million children have no access to any sort of health care. Through UNICEF actions these children will be have a much higher survival rate by having better health such as having the access to vaccines to survive deadly diseases. I wished to add more for each of my sections as I forgot to include the technology of computers.

Kenya's Farmers: http://allafrica.com/stories/201307220227.html - Kenya's farmers are being pleaded by governor to take up modern day farming methods to help increase their crop output, and allow them to get out of hunger. The modern day world has allowed Kenya's farmers to have access to all the information across the world. For the article in my previous post, FAO definitely showed Kenya's farmers the modern day methods to get out of droughts using dams, and terracing; however this would not be possible without modern day technology. Computers are needed for global messaging that can be delivered within seconds, and in the past to gain help from around the world would be impossible, but thanks to the internet people in Kenya were able to tell the world of their problems. Would the world help if they were ignorant about problems across the world?

Cleaning Water and Sanitation: http://www.actionagainsthunger.org/blog/haiti-access-water-and-sanitation-urgently-needed The article describes how the AAH handled the the immediate need for clean water and sanitation for Haiti after the major earthquake. Through the use of technology, instant messaging, and internet society calling for global help for Haiti, Actions Against Hunger was able to take immediate action to send resources to Haiti. These resources of course included water, sanitation equipment, but the resources also included a computer and communication. These modern day technology will help the people of Haiti stay connected with everybody, and voice themselves to the internet. Would Actions Against Hunger send immediate help if the internet society did not ask or demand for immediate action by all organizations aiming to end poverty and hunger?

Computers by UNICEF: http://medcitynews.com/2013/08/will-u-help-unicef-develops-texting-network-to-promote-child-health/ Just like in my previous post, UNICEF was able to establish health care facilities for children without one. This kind of response was only responsible with modern day communication, but UNICEF has other solutions to keep children's health up. UNICEF set up an instant text messaging network for people in Africa. People are now able to report illnesses and deaths immediately, and have authorities check up on the person. In the article, one of the deaths scared people thinking the death cause could be Ebola, but we're gradly relieved after reporting the incident an official soon came to verify the disease was not Ebola. Will the text messaging network be constantly used for what it was designed for, or will the text messaging network be used for more leisure.

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2. Achieve universal primary education

Achieve universal primary education

Education is the backbone of our world. Without education the world would just be a place where everything in it is redundant .Giving education a wider audience enhances our generation to bring new technologies and to create a newer and simpler way of life. Some non-governmental organizations are doing extremely well in building schools and creating awareness. With education we can eradicate the other world issues. An educated person is likely to keep his life decisions in the proper direction.

http://universal.edu.in/?page_id=25

r>e>a>l Redefining education and learning

• 1. Intellectually demanding curriculum
• 2. Robust learning faculties
• 3. Engaging technology-rich content
• 4. Efficient administration
• 5. Emphasis on wholesome growth

This resource is about an association named universal education that is trying to bring quality education to a world famous tech-savvy country India. The association uses a lot of measures to improve the education and to educate the large portion of the community. As seen in the video the children are allowed to play with their iPod’s in class using the apps certified by the teachers. This really creates an atmosphere where the children are interested and eager to learn more in their day at the school. They have used apps like Kidsabc that teaches the students how to read and write the alphabets. The children seem to learn more and grasp concepts faster using this technique. Education should be fun and at the same time a path that leads the student to learn new things. Universal Education redefines the education system by letting the student be creative, interactive to the outside world and progress more quickly.

http://www.worldbank.org/mdgs/education.html

World Bank has been a supporter of education for eradication poverty sign since 1962 now. World Bank provides a resource for institutions like international development Association (IDA) that help spread education across the world. Between 2004 and 2008 the World Bank has given 2 billion per year in loans, credits, and grants to support education. From statics the area with least education coverage is Sub-Sahara Africa. For instance in Ethiopia, the World Bank provided money for the local government to expand the education coverage. Now in Ethiopia we find plasma TV’s, Computer Lab's and accessories like pens, books in a classroom. Students used to sit outside on a stone but now with the help of World Bank they sit on a chair inside a classroom.

http://unchronicle.un.org/article/towards-universal-primary-education-experience-tanzania/index.html

Tanzania has seen the rate of primary education drop and also rise in the past 20 years. At the beginning with the help of UN the government revised programs that increased the enrollment rate and overall awareness, but at a later time because of economic hardship the rates dropped. By 2000 the government created a new educational plan that significantly increased the country’s literacy rate. This was done by creating more schools, recruiting more teachers and fulfilling the basic accessories for the students. The schools also introduced computers and other technologies to the students that helped improve the overall education quality.

I think UN should revise more student-focused plans. What do you think?

Broadband key to education for all
This is an article describing some of what Ericsson does to help with this Millennium Goal. It also tells about Ericsson and Vivo working together to bring education to villages in the Brazilian Amazon. They bring technology and ways to connect with the world to learn.

Education in focus in Myanmar
This arcticle again talks about how Ericcson is helping with this Millennium Goal. They will be helping in Myanmar by helping establish a better education system with computers. This project seems as though it will take a while to be perfected and completed, but when it is it will be extremely helpful for a nation with extreme poverty.

Connected Schools
This article talks about Ericsson setting up 3G networks and computers in schools in Hawzen, Ethiopia. They trained the teachers on how to use the computers and how they can be used to educate their students. This article talks about how the teachers and students were showed things like Google and Wikipedia for the first time, and the awe they were in when they first used them. They seemed to be extremely curious about what can be found online and, according to the author of the article, the teachers quickly began looking up new curriculum on Google.

1.

http://www.tigweb.org/youth-media/panorama/article.html?ContentID=2122

Panorama is working towards the education of children and people in developing nations by trying to implement the use of computers and the internet connection in these countries.

2.

http://www.col.org/resources/speeches/2009presentation/Pages/2009-06-CMRB.aspx

CommonWealth of Learning describes the work that is done to provide eLearning. Lists steps that they’re trying to take to make that possible in developing countries. One way they're trying to make this happen is by making mobile phones more accessible to children.

3.

http://www.ednetinsight.com/news-alerts/voice-from-the-field/educational-technology-for-the-developing-world.html

Described an experience that Jim Teicher, Director, CyberSmart Education, CyberSmart Africa, had while in West Africa. He spoke about how technology today could allow for the use of inexpensive technology without having to be on the grid.

It was amazing to see that someone could use something as simple as solar panels to power devices that could be used to educate children. All it takes is the sun hitting the panels and the children can look forward to a brighter future. People who live in countries like the U.S., most people, take little things like this for granted. We shouldn't.

I chose to work on this goal because I think education is the most powerful tool you can give to anyone, to not afford everyone the right to a basic education worldwide is debilitating to the entire world. In third world countries where children get no education, starving and sick the country is never going to be able to progress without knowledge. Especially these days with technology booming way faster then we can catch up we need to help each other start sharing our knowledge so that we can build a stronger country as well. I think with technology being where it is makes it a perfect time to achieve universal education. We have access via the web to any information we need so teaching children or adults will be a lot easier to reach via the web then in classroom instruction. There have been programs that have been built to allow communication where there was no way before. so

1.This website has numerous links and information regarding whether we will reach our 2015 MDG #2 “Universal Primary Education Goal”. The website reports from data monitored that the total number of children out of school fell from 106 million to 67 million between 1999-2005.

http://www.endpoverty2015.org

2.My World is a survey of one million people worldwide conducted by the United Nations and partners to help hear the world's voices, top priorities and opinions. The survey is will help shape the foundation of the next millenium development goals in 2015. The top 2 priorities are education and healthcare. Education coming in at the top 2 global priorities the world wants to address is awesome. The two things I always have thought should be free. If we are educated and healthy we have a strong society, country. There is a link to actually take the survey, as well as a link to the

.http://www.myworld2015.org/

3. UNESCO created a monitor and evaluating system which ensures, 

Progress and challenges to be assessed Countries to be made accountable for their commitments. Areas of success or failure also to be identified. Reinforce educational planning Appropriate policy actions will be taken

http://www.unesco.org

6. Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases

UNICEF

This article touches on the use of SMS technology and how its implication in the fight against HIV/AIDs is progressive in Zambia. The article covers the specifics of one mobile application called "RapidSMS", this application is used to notify the status of a person's test results to HIV. In the article it describe an example of an HIV positive mother and her unknown status of her infant child. This technology helps people whose' access to clinical availability is not an easy trip. According to the article this SMS not only make the results available, but also save time and lives. It does so by cutting the turn around time for a person to get thier results from 66 days to 14 days. Another mobile application that the article covers is "RemindMi", this application help as acting as a reminder to important dates and helps improve post-natal follow-ups.

USAID

In researching articles for the UN Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 6 I found an interesting one. This article focuses on how technology can help control and decrease the outbreak of Malaria. It discusses a research program RTI that is supported by the US President's Malaria Initiative. Combined with Zanzibar Malaria Control Programme this research program developed a mobile application that helps build a data structure for Malaria Early Epidemic Detection System (MEEDS). Which in turn when used by health facilities controls and gives a better outlook on ways to eradicating the disease. The article states that this is done by using the program for locating, detecting, and then responding in a timely matter for malaria outbreaks.

allAfrica

This article evaluates tuberculosis in africa and how technology is helping by detecting if someone has the strain with in two-hour of testing the individual. In standard test, such as sputum cultures, can take up to 8 week to determine the type of tuberculosis. And even though a doctor might be able to tell if a person has TB by x-ray and symptoms; the GeneXpert system accuracy in testing can saves time and resource that can be applied to other things. The article also discusses the cons of this machine. Even though it does save time, nurses will need to be trained on how to use this technology. The cost of the machine at $17,000 is also a problem. And the last critique about the advance tech is that we would still need to wait for the culture in order to treat the patient in case of a drug resistance strain. Though the counter argument to that is that by eliminating the non-infected, doctors can focus on the infected and control the outbreak and future contaminants from spreading.

7. Ensure environmental sustainability

http://www.undp.org/content/undp/fr/home/ourwork/environmentandenergy/successstories/water_access_in_sudan/ (I'd recommend opening this one in Chrome so it could be translated into English.)

The United Nations Development (UNDP) opened up a water treatment plant and tank for accessing water for individuals residing in South Kordofan, Sudan. This technology has enabled individuals to turn their once four hour trek into a twenty-minute trek, which allows them more time to focus on school and other activities.

http://www.akdn.org/akpbs_pakistan.asp

The Aga Khan Planning and Building Service, Pakistan (AGKPS,P) has two programs that address bettering the lives and living conditions of people. The Water and Sanitation Extension Programme, or WASEP, focuses on water and sanitation needs. The Building and Construction Improvement Programme, or BACIP, uses energy efficient technology to help conserve resources and natural habitats. They have introduced various technologies to address these issues. Some of these include operational water treatment plants, household sanitation systems, solar cookers and water heaters, and bio-gas plants for cooking and light-weight, low-cost iron wire reinforcements for walls, thermal efficiency through sufficient insulations and treatments.

http://growinginclusivemarkets.org/media/cases/Mali_RESCOs_Summary.pdf

This case study examines the impact of two Rural Energy Services Companies in Mali: Koraye Kurumba and Yeelen Kura. They provide low-cost electricity that, "resulted in undeniable development impacts, such as enhancing standards of living, favoring the development of income-generating impacts, and improving quality of healthcare and education." (online) Technology is being used to provide low-cost electricity, either through solar panels or through diesel generators that support low-voltage micro-networks in the village.

Myanmar (Burma) now using water as power.
A small village of Thicong, Myanmar, it would take 2 days to gather enough wood to cook and power their village with light and warmth. The village has gathered $3250 to fund the project, buying materials to hiring engineers to oversee the completion of the project. With the completion of the project, the villagers have been able to extend their productivity such as weaving baskets.

Bangladesh, Southeast Asia. Clean air and sustainable environment project.
The project was introduced and began operation on May 2009, and set to finish in December 2016. The intent of this project is to improve the overall air quality in Dhaka, Bangladesh, and better mobility safety. Traffic lights and sidewalk reconditioning has already gone underway, with the traffic lights effectively using solar power from solar power panels.

India, The quest for zero e-waste.
Annually, India creates about 800,000 tons of e-waste, and only 3% of this 800,000 tons make it to authorized e-waste recycling companies. Attero Recycling has begun efforts to increase the amount of e-waste to successfully making it to recycling facilities. Attero is currently the largest e-waste recycling company in India.