At the NCCA
What are the Millennium Development Goals?
An overview of the Millenium Development Goals...
In 2000, world leaders came together and made a commitment to measurable progress towards peace, security, disarmament, human rights, democracy and good governance.They committed to halving poverty by 2015. This statement of both commitment and confidence in humanity was the Millennium Declaration. Out of this declaration arose the Millennium Development Goals (the MDGs). These are eight goals which are measurable and have a time limit. The goals address poverty, hunger, education, maternal and child health, the prevalence of diseases including HIV/AIDS, gender equality, the environment, debt, trade justice and aid.
The MDGs focus on the alleviation of poverty for the poorest of the poor and for those in least developed countries.
The world leaders, in supporting these goals, were saying that despite all the conflict and poverty in the world there is hope and that ending poverty is a question of will. We, as global citizens, must want to ensure a more equitable and peaceful world. In the words of Kofi Annan:
We should never despair. Our problems are not beyond our power to meet them. But we cannot be content with incomplete success and we cannot make do with incremental responses to the shortcomings that have been revealed. Instead, we must come together to bring about far - reaching change.
Kofi Annan, in his report to the General Assembly of the United Nations, in March 2005, makes the point that development, security and human rights go hand in hand. He calls this Larger Freedom:
Larger freedom implies that men and women everywhere have the right to be governed by their own consent, under law, in a society where all individuals can, without discrimination or retribution, speak, worship and associate freely. They must also be free from want - so that the death sentences of extreme poverty and infectious disease are lifted from their lives - and free from fear - so that their lives and livelihoods are not ripped apart by violence and war. Indeed, all people have the right to security and development.(Kofi Annan, A/59/2005 page 5)
The Millennium Development Goals and Indigenous Peoples
The MDGs do not specifically target Indigenous Peoples but Indigenous Peoples around the world are most affected by extreme poverty and usually rank at the bottom of most social and economic indicators.
Indigenous Peoples constitute more than 370 million of the world’s population and make up approximately 90 percent of the world’s linguistic diversity (Nicolaisen 2005).
Indigenous Peoples are largely invisible in the debate about the MDGs. The MDGs are outcomes focused and there is a danger that in defining and measuring poverty in such a way the specific causes of poverty amongst Indigenous Peoples will not be addressed.
The MDGs must be aligned with poverty reduction strategies that address the particular needs of Indigenous Peoples. Without the meaningful participation of Indigenous Peoples their marginalisation and exclusion will continue.
While MDGs have the potential for assessing the major problems faced by Indigenous peoples, the MDGs and their indicators for achievement do not necessarily capture the specificities of indigenous and tribal peoples and their visions (Nicolaisen 2005).
In practical terms this means that Indigenous Peoples must be involved in describing and defining what poverty is to them. Key indicators must be devised by, and be meaningful to, Indigenous Peoples. Non–Indigenous Peoples must examine the structural exclusion that occurs at all levels of power and decision making. Measuring how many dollars a day somebody lives on will not encompass the wide gamut of factors that leads to Indigenous poverty including; colonisation, loss of traditional lands, loss of languages, loss of traditional law and loss of cultural practices – to name but a few.
Even then, the MDGs will not go all the way to relieving poverty and we make the point that they are one tool to raise awareness and focus on measurable outcomes in order to ensure that we as a society do not shirk our responsibility to ensure that what is the right of every human being - to live free from poverty – is guaranteed.