No guarantee on reaching Millennium Development Goals

Reaching the United Nations Millennium Development Goals by 2015 is “first and foremost a moral problem,” according to Jesuit Father Michael Czerny.

Czerny will accompany Cardinal Peter Turkson, president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, to a Sept. 20-22 high level meeting at the United Nations in New York to review progress on the MDGs. The Canadian Jesuit is Turkson’s personal advisor on justice and peace issues.

As the United Nations reviews what still needs to happen for the world to achieve the Millennium Development Goals by 2015, there’s a distinct possibility it could miss all eight targets, said Czerny.

While the main focus of the three-day meeting will be political and technical, the Vatican delegation can contribute moral reasoning to back up technical solutions, Czerny told The Catholic Register before flying to New York for meeting preparations.

“We have to judge what is good, what is less good and what is evil,” said Czerny. “We have to go for the good. And if we say it’s too expensive, that’s evil.”

Czerny gives the Harper Conservative government credit for making modest progress on maternal health and child mortality (MDG goals four and five) at this summer’s G8 and G20 meetings. Though the $7.3 billion over five years Harper raised from G8 countries and private donors fell short of $24 billion over five years aid agencies said would be necessary, it does represent positive progress at a time when rich countries are seeing jobs evaporate and their countries plunged into debt.

“There’s a big difference between the world we’re in today and the world we were in at Gleneagles in 2005,” Czerny said.

The Millennium Development Goals are important to the Vatican because they represent a practical way of implementing important aspects of Catholic social teaching, said Czerny.

“This is where the rubber hits the road.”

While the Vatican continues to voice concern over the idea abortion and contraception are solutions to poverty, there’s much more to the Holy See’s contribution on the MDGs than opposition to abortion, said Czerny.

“It would be very unfortunate if people learn about the MDGs just because of the debates about reproductive health,” he said.

The Vatican will continue to voice its opposition to abortion, but also to propose positive solutions, he said.

At the last preparatory meeting for the Sept. 20-22 New York meeting the Vatican nuncio to the UN, Archbishop Celestino Migliore, said giving women economic and political power is essential if the world is going to achieve the MDGs.

“Women and girls must be guaranteed their full enjoyment of civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights — including equal access to education and health,” Migliore said July 1 in New York.

The MDGs represent a test of leadership for the rich countries, said Czerny.

“Governments are supposed to lead their people towards sacrifice,” he said.

Where they're at

By Catholic Register Staff

There’s a lot riding on the Millennium Development Goals — 1.4-billion people who live on less than $1.25 a day, nine-million children who die each year before their fifth birthday, 33.4-million people living with HIV and AIDS.

Since the United Nations unanimously adopted the eight Millennium Development Goals in 2000 much has been accomplished, but no one is pretending the world is on track to meet the targets by 2015.

So far, here is where we stand.

Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger:

Between 1990 and 2005 the number of people living under the international poverty line of $1.25 per day declined by 400 million, dropping from 1.8 billion to 1.4 billion. In underdeveloped countries the overall poverty rate fell from 46 per cent in 1990 to 27 per cent in 2005. However, almost all the gains have been in Asia. Sub-Saharan Africa’s poverty rate over 15 years went from 58 per cent to 51 per cent.
Primary education for all children — boys and girls:

About 69-million school-age children are not in school. That’s down from 106 million in 1999, but there’s still 31-million African kids who can’t go to school, 18-million Asians and not much prospect of reaching the goal by 2015.
Give women the same educational and occupational opportunities as men by 2015:

In sub-Saharan Africa 67 women attend university for every 100 men. In Asia it’s 76 females for every 100 males.
Reduce mortality among children under five by two-thirds of 1990 levels:

Between 1990 and 2008 the death rate for kids under five in developing countries has dropped from 100 deaths for every 1,000 live births to 72 per 1,000 live births. In sub-Saharan Africa one in seven children die before they reach five years old.
A 75-per-cent reduction in deaths of women giving birth and universal access to reproductive health services:

In 2008 63 per cent of births in the developing world had a trained health care worker helping at the delivery — up from 53 per cent in 1990.
Reverse the growth in new cases of HIV, provide universal access to HIV and AIDS treatment, drive down the number of new cases of malaria, tuberculosis and other diseases:

Every day 5,500 people die because of AIDS and 7,400 more are infected with HIV. Malaria kills a child somewhere in the world (but mostly in Africa) every 45 seconds. Half of the 1.8-million people killed by tuberculosis in 2008 were infected with HIV. By the end of 2009 more than five-million people were getting antiretroviral treatment for HIV, compared with just 400,000 in 2003.
Make economic growth environmentally sustainable by reducing biodiversity loss, increasing the proportion of populations with safe drinking water and basic sanitation and improving the lives of 100 million slum dwellers:

There are 1.7-billion more people with access to safe drinking water than there were in 1990. However 884 million don’t have safe water and 2.6 billion lack basic sanitation services.
A global partnership between rich and poor nations to promote development:

Official development assistance by developed countries currently comes to a combined 0.31 per cent of national income — 44 per cent of the official UN target of 0.7 per cent. Canada’s development aid in 2009 was 0.30 per cent of gross national income, down from 0.33 per cent in 2008.

Sources: United Nations, OECD.