Millennium Development Goals a strategy for Systemic Change

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Systemic Change Initiative
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Millennium Development Goals A United Nations
Perspective
Joseph Foley, C.M. Vincentian UN NGO
Office jpfcm_at_verizon.net 917 921 3483
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Systemic Change Initiative
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• Introduction
• The World We Have
• The Millennium Development Goals
• Faces of Poverty
• Conclusions
• A hopeful example

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Systemic Change Initiative
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• The world we have
• The majority of the people alive in the world
  today find themselves at the sharp point of the
  sword of the global economic system .
• Whole communities, even countries, are almost
  entirely redundant to the global economy. They
  have no significant capital and their labor is
  unwanted or under-waged.
• They have little customer clout because they
  dont have enough spending power to make them
  attractive .. except to money lenders, drug
  dealers and sellers of weapons.

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Systemic Change Initiative
The world we have

• The world we have is also a world in which people
  of faith organize to challenge this overbearing
  power.
• These people of faith believe that in the faces
  of the poorest, the most powerless, the most
  insignificant person they see the image of God.
• Their challenge, in solidarity with the poor,
  takes many forms they advocate for debt
  cancellation, trade justice, human rights,
  environmental activism and promoting systemic
  change.

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• The world we have has been with us for a long
  time
• The Prophet Micah warned Israel of old that it
  would have to pay for its war crimes.
• Their crimes were
• The oppression of the weak by the strong
• The expropriation of peasants from their land
• The eviction of small holders
• The enslavement of children.
• None of these crimes have disappeared from the
  face of the earth.

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Systemic Change Initiative
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The world we have..new elements. the food
crisis

• Wheat prices have risen 120
• Rice prices have risen 75
• Poor families spend up to 80 of their budget
  on food. Those who are struggling to pay for food
  will eat less or cheaper food with less
  nutritional value.
• An estimated 100 million people have fallen
  into poverty in the last 2 years
• Prices are expected to stay high through 2015
• 21 of 36 countries in a food security crisis
  are in Sub-Saharan Africa, according to the
  United Nations FAO

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The world we have . causes of the food crisis

• Population growth greater demand for animal
  protein increased fuel prices floods, droughts
  and disasters decrease in food reserves bans on
  exporting food by governments speculators, years
  of underinvestment in agricultural productivity.

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Systemic Change Initiative
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The world we have the global financial
crisis

Coming on the heels of the food and fuel crisis,
is the global financial crisis. This has made
life worse for everyone. Sharply tighter credit,
weaker growth, the failure of banks and
businesses are undercutting government revenues
and governments ability to invest in order to
meet education, health and gender goals. Poor
countries, like poor people, are hit hardest.
Current estimates suggest that a one percent
decline in the growth rate of a developing
country traps an additional 20 million people
into poverty. Already 100 million people have
been driven into poverty as a result of high food
and fuel prices.
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Systemic Change Initiative
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The world we have

NEVER HAS WORKING TO MEET THE MILLENNIUM
DEVELOPMENT BEEN MORE URGENT
We are at the mid-point of a great campaign to
end world poverty, as set forth in the Millennium
Development Goals
Clearly, we have made a real difference.  Yet, we
are falling short of what I know we can do.
This is a sacred cause. The fight against global
poverty and human suffering is a moral
imperative.
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Systemic Change Initiative
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IN WHAT WAY HAVE YOU FELT THE IMPACT OF THE OIL
CRISIS, THE FOOD CRISIS, OR THE FINANCIAL
CRISIS? (10 minutes)
.
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MDGs and the Systemic Change Initiative
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Millennium Development Goals
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Systemic Change Initiative
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Goal 1 Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
Over one billion people live on less than 1 a
day. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, this
boy spends every day chipping through stones in
search of minerals to sell. For a flour bag of
mineral-rich stones he is paid as little as 25
cents. His family and community are dependent on
this industry. Target Halve by 2015, the
proportion of people who suffer from poverty and
hunger.
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Goal 2 Achieve universal primary education
Rowena was three when she started work in the
Philippines, digging through a garbage dump to
collect recyclable materials. Shes never been
to school at all. Target Ensure that by
2015, children everywhere, boys and girls alike,
will be able to complete a full course of primary
schooling.
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Goal 3 Promote gender equality and empower women

At fourteen, Phally was working two jobs while
her brothers went to school. Now, with the help
of a small loan and some training, she runs a
successful grocery business in Cambodia she not
only employs her brothers, but can send her own
daughter to school.
Target Eliminate gender disparity in primary and
secondary education no later than 2015.
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Systemic Change Initiative
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Goal 4 Reduce child mortality

In Afghanistan each year, 283,000 children under
the age of five die. Bismillah is one of the
lucky ones. Suffering malnourishment and
pneumonia, she was brought in time to a clinic
where shes on her way to recovery. Target
Reduce by two-thirds the under five mortality
rate by 2015.
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Systemic Change Initiative
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Goal 5 Improve maternal health

Around 529,000 women die each year giving birth.
99 are from developing countries and 80 of
deaths are preventable. As a traditional birth
attendant, Emily is fighting to reverse these
statistics, helping with safer deliveries for
hundreds of women in rural Malawi.
Target Reduce by three-quarters the maternal
mortality rate by 2015.
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Systemic Change Initiative
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Goal 6 Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other
diseases
Pedro, Rose and Chembe visit the grave of their
mother who died from an HIV/AIDS illness. Their
grandfather, 75, now takes care of them. Over 14
million children have been orphaned by HIV/AIDS
worldwide.
Target Have halted by 2015 and begun to reverse
the spread of HIV/AIDS, malaria and other
diseases.
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Systemic Change Initiative
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Goal 7 Ensure environmental sustainability

Every day these children collect water for their
family. They are lucky enough to live near a
borehole. The average distance to travel for
water in Africa is 6km, and some children spend
up to six hours per day on this task.
Target Integrate the principles of sustainable
development into country policies and programs
and reverse the loss of environmental resources.
Halve by 2015 the proportion of people without
access to safe drinking water.
By 2015, to have achieved significant
improvement in the lives of at least 100 million
slum dwellers.
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Systemic Change Initiative
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Goal 8 Develop a global partnership for
development

In Uganda, Simon sells the harvest from a few
parched coffee plants that his parents planted
before their death. He has no access to global
markets or opportunity for a fair price. For
every 1 paid for tea at a supermarket, less than
15 cents goes to people in the country where the
tea was grown.
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Systemic Change Initiative
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• Target for MDG 8
• Target 1. Develop further an open, rule-based,
  predictable, non-discriminatory trading and
  financial system nationally and
  internationally.
• Target 2. Deal comprehensively with the debt
  problems of developing countries through national
  and international measures in order to make debt
  sustainable in the long term.
• Target 3. Address the special needs of landlocked
  countries and small island developing States.
• Target 4. Address the special needs of the least
  developed countries.

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Poverty knows no age and no boundaries
Faces of Poverty
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Poverty knows no age and no boundaries
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Systemic Change Initiative
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These goals are about increasing human and
financial security. They are about habitat and
livelihood about health and education all of
which reduce the likelihood of war and
conflict. They are about communities making a
transition from non-viable and unsustainable
communities to communities that are self-reliant
and sustainable. They are an important means of
realizing systemic change.
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Systemic Change Initiative
what can one Family do?

WOULD ANY OF THE MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS
RELATE TO LOCAL NEEDS THAT YOU ARE AWARE OF?
COULD THE SYSTEMIC CHANGE STRATEGIES CONTRIBUTE
SIGNIFICANTLY TO REALIZING THE MILLENNIUM
DEVELOPMENT GOALS? 10 MINUTES
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Systemic Change Initiative
what can one Family do?
Three connection points with the MDGs

• Women
• Women perform a significant amount of the
  pastoral work in Christian Churches. Yet,
  women are disproportionately affected by poverty.
  Women make up one half of the worlds population
  do two-thirds of the worlds productive work own
  ten percent of the worlds wealth and own one
  percent of the worlds land.
• The achievement of womens human dignity and
  empowerment is a crucial factor in a sustainable
  future for life on earth and it is the single
  most effective way to insure the well-being of
  children.
• This is recognized in the MDGs.

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Systemic Change Initiative
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Three connection points with the MDGs

• 2. Migration a continually evolving
  situation

• Migration is a planetary and structural
  phenomenon. It is the result of unjust
  development policies at the international level.
  The human rights of migrant workers are rarely
  acknowledged.
• 200 million people are on the move all over the
  globe.
• Forced migration happens when people cannot
  find productive work in their home countries
  because of war, violence, corruption or
  insufficient market access.
• The number of women who are leaving their country
  of origin has become equal to the number of men.
  Migration is even more difficult for women!
• Many of our communities are migrant sending
  and/or migrant receiving communities.

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Systemic Change Initiative
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Three connection points with the MDGs

3. Indigenous People the world

• At least 350 million people are considered to be
  indigenous. They are divided into at least 5,000
  peoples, living in 70 countries. But
  colonization, industrialization and the desire
  for the wealth beneath their lands has taken a
  dramatic toll
• by the 1930s, Australias indigenous
  population had declined by 90.
• The European invasion of the Americas wiped
  out 90.
• Brazils indigenous population is estimated to
  have been around 5 million when the Portuguese
  first arrived. Today it is 350,000.
• By almost any measure, the indigenous people, the
  first people, are the poorest of the poor.

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Systemic Change Initiative
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Millennium Villages an encouraging example

Millennium Villages are an innovation approach to
eliminating poverty. Millennium Villages seek to
implement several MDGs simultaneously and all
Millennium Villages address 4 basic areas
agriculture, health and education, water and
sanitation, and infrastructure.
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• Millennium Villages Malawi
• Malawi is one of 90 such villages. In only three
  years it is able to report that
• Agricultural production has increased due to
  subsidized fertilizer, additional maize seeds and
  new farming techniques.
• Farmers producing more than they need just to
  live. They are able to sell surplus products and
  purchase much needed household goods.
• School feeding programs are now also possible,
  thus raising school attendance.

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Systemic Change Initiative
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• Millennium Villages Malawi
• In terms of health, there are new treatment
  programs for patients with HIV/AIDS. (Some 550
  had been placed on antiretroviral treatment.)
  This has brought a sense of hope to a community
  that had been seriously impacted by the disease.
• De-worming of children has also improved their
  health status.

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• Millennium Villages Malawi

• This Millennium Village project is also making
  improvements in infrastructure, such as
  increasing access to safe water supplies and
  building bridges, bridges that provide vital
  links to schools and markets.
• New microfinance initiatives had been
  established, enabling people to start new
  businesses.
• Mobile banking units facilitate personal
  savings.

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Systemic Change Initiative
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After only three years, Malawi, like many of the
other Millennium Villages, can point to a
systemic change, leading to the transformation of
life for people who lived for too long in
dehumanizing poverty.
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2010, our Vincentian Anniversary
Celebration 2010 is also the year for the
United Nations to review progress on the MDGs.
Progress is now possible only if local
communities, ordinary people who care, come to
know about the Goals, enlist the cooperation of
local governments, engage relevant stakeholders
and begin the work moving from rhetoric to
action. One of the best hopes for the MDGs lies
in the hands of people of faith.

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Systemic Change Initiative
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Did not the One who made the outside of the dish
make the inside as well? If we love
the poor, working for systemic change can be a
very good way to express it.
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Systemic Change Initiative
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For more information on Systemic Change or the
Millennium Development Goals, contact, Joseph
Foley, C.M. Congregation of the Mission United
Nations Office 917-921-34834 JPFCM_at_verizon.net