Challenge Of The Millennium Development Goals

Challenge Of The Millennium Development Goals Introduction This essay addresses four main research questions, namely: what are the challenges of the Millennium Development Goal Two as an education development concept; how has the concept of the Millennium Development Goal Two improved the existing education system; what strategies are being used to achieve the Millennium Development Goal Two and how effective are these strategies in achieving the objective; and is 2015 a realistic objective for achieving the Millennium Development Goal Two, in terms of what means are being used to determine the achievement of the goal and how reliable/effective these tools are. Millennium Development Goals The Millennium Development Goals are to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger; to achieve universal primary education; to promote gender equality and to empower women; to reduce child mortality; to improve maternal health; to combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases; to ensure environmental sustainability; and to develop a global partnershi p for development. Each goal is composed of a series of targets that have associated indicators for monitoring progress. The Millennium Development Goal Two, for example, aims to achieve universal primary education, with the main target being to ensure that, by 2015, children everywhere, boys and girls like, will be able to complete a full course of primary schooling, with three main indicators for monitoring progress, namely the net enrolment ratio in primary education; the proportion of pupils starting grade 1 who reach the last grade of primary school; and the literacy rate of 15-24 year olds, both women and men. Some of the aims of the Millennium Development Goal Two overlap with those of Millennium Development Goal Three, which aims to promote gender equality, aiming to eliminate gender disparity in primary (and secondary) education in terms of the ratios of girls to boys in primary (and later) education. In Africa, the Millennium Development Goals are overseen by the MDG Afric a Steering Group, which brings together the leaders of development organisations working in Africa, the UN Secretary General and the heads of various organisations, such as the IMF, the Islamic Development Bank Group and the World Bank Group, in to order to identify the steps that are needed to achieve the Millennium Development Goals in Africa (MDG Africa Steering Group, 2009). The objectives of the MDG Africa Steering Group are to strengthen international mechanisms for implementation of development plans in health, education, agriculture, food security and infrastructure, to improve aid predictability and efficacy and to enhance coordination of aid at the level of individual countries (MDG Africa Steering Group, 2009). The Millennium Development Goals were developed as a fundamental part of the Millennium Declaration, which was signed by 189 countries in September 2000 (UN, 2000), supported by further countries at the 2005 World Summit via Resolution A/RES/60/1 of the UN General Assembly (UN, 2005). The Millennium Development Goals were conceptualised as a set of inter-related goals and targets that represent a way to encourage a viable partnership between developed and developing countries, in order to develop an environment – both global and national – that is conducive to development and to the elimination of the causes, and consequences, of poverty (UNDP, 2009). As of the date of signing of the Millennium Declaration, many hundreds of millions of people in the developing world lived below the poverty line, with a large proportion of these people failing to receive enough food to be able to survive. The Millennium Development Goals were, thus, developed as a concerted effort to identify where improvements were necessary and how these improvements could be made, via a series of targets and indicators, which would allow progress to be measured over the various goals. The Millennium Declaration focused on several main areas of improvement, inc luding the achievement of peace and security, poverty eradication, protecting the environment, ensuring human rights are upheld and protecting the most vulnerable members of the worldwide community, with this framework providing the conceptual basis of the Declaration and providing the holistic framework for the development of the specific goals, targets and indicators for monitoring progress.