The Millennium Development Goals: Revving up Efforts

September 30, 2008—Last week world leaders, NGOs, royalty and rock stars joined forces to energize efforts for achieving the 8 Millennium Development Goals by the target date of 2015. Here are some of the event's highlights:

Achieving Universal Primary Education

A diverse group of world leaders and celebrities launched the Class of 2015, Education For All Partnership, committing $45 billion toward placing 24 million children in school by 2010. This would be a huge step toward the goal of universal primary education by 2015.

Rock star activists Bono and Bob Geldof announced plans to establish two teacher training colleges in Malawi and Rwanda, while the International Football Federation (FIFA) announced its "Football for Hope" project to mobilize millions of World Cup fans to help achieve universal education in Africa.

The meeting also focused on ending discrimination against girls, who in many parts of the world are the last to be sent to school and the first to be pulled out. Two girls, Devli Kumari from India and Ablaayi Agbodjan from Togo, spoke about how they escaped from child labor, and their hopes and dreams now that they are in school.

Global Malaria Action Plan Launch

Nearly a million people die of malaria each year and most of them are children under five. Governments, private donors and NGOs pledged nearly $3 billion toward the Global Malaria Action Plan, aiming to eliminate malaria as a mass child killer by 2015. Its features include providing better access to bed nets, indoor spraying, improved diagnosis and treatment, preventative measures for pregnant women and development of new vaccines.

In My Name Website and Song

The Global Call to Action Against Poverty launched the In My Name website just in time for the UN conference on the MDGs. The site has news, videos and blogs from the conference, and also features In My Name—a song by will.i.am from the Black Eyed Peas, calling on "individuals to realize their power" to end poverty and inequality.

Read more about the major commitments (pdf) that took place last week toward achieving the MDGs.

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