The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) progress, endorsed exactly fifteen years ago in 2000, was recently reflected upon in July 2015. This substantial success set a significant precedent for the upcoming United Nations summit at the high-level plenary meeting of the General Assembly in New York this September.

The MDGs proved the power behind global action. This reassured the United Nations that this methodology demonstrates success and shows encouraging results. The United Nations and other intergovernmental organizations monitored more than 28 countries during the fifteen years to determine the results of eight MDGs, the first of which was a reduction in global poverty.

The results were highly satisfying. The United Nations noted that the MDGs showed shortcomings in its inability to reach the most vulnerable and did little to improve the conditions of the “ultra-poor,” but the U.N. Secretary-General firmly stated that these “successes should be celebrated [by] our global community,” while staying “keenly aware of where we have come short.”

The success of these developing countries was a direct consequence of “targeted interventions, sound strategies, adequate resources, and political will.” While the U.N. Secretary General’s special adviser, Jeffery Sachs, states that the upcoming Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) proposal will be “the greatest, most complicated challenge humanity has ever faced” due to a “juggernaut of a world economy is pressing against the finite limits of the planet,” the MDGs are a shining beacon of hopeful resolve.

The global problems of the world are a global and generational responsibility that Sachs believes “requires the best intellects around the world to help solve [these] problems and design new, more sustainable systems.” Innovation is key. Sachs states that the world needs to reimagine its vision for the future in order to make the improvements envisioned in the SDGs to be proposed in September.

Millennium to Sustainable Development Goals, the United Nations clearly visualizes a future that, as Ban states, “strives to reflect these lessons [learned from the MDGs], build on the successes and put all countries together, firmly, on track towards a more prosperous, sustainable, and equitable world.” The SDGs aim to take a working methodology, global action and universal cooperation to see extreme poverty eliminated by 2030.

– Felicia L. Warren

Sources: UN 1, UN 2, UN 3, The Guardian
Photo: The Guardian