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Millennium Development Goals: What Are They?

10/14/2013, 12:45am CDT
By Kaaren Kargbo-Reffell

Hey all! It's Kaaren and I know it's been a little bit since you've heard a peep out of me so I decided to hit you all with my take on something that WAMM and I find incredibly important, the Millennium Development Goals

Hey all! It's Kaaren and I know it's been a little bit since you've heard a peep out of me so I decided to hit you all with my take on something that WAMM and I find incredibly important, the Millennium Development Goals. Also, my blog has now moved over to the WAMM website, as you can tell. Be sure to check it out along with the other blogs we've got going on. Just follow the link http://www.westafricanmedicalmissions.org/page/show/491246-media.

Now, I’ve had my fair share of learning about the MDGs in my minor for International Development and Conflict Management. We’ve even talked about it in some of my community health courses as they relate to infectious diseases and the health of women and children around the world. When I first learned about the MDGs, the future epidemiologist (and quite frankly, nerd) in me was ecstatic. Something was being done about the problems I one day hoped to solve. I wanted to learn more about what the United Nations and other organizations were doing to decrease the prevalence of infectious diseases like malaria and HIV/AIDS as well as how women were being helped during their pregnancies. The latter was of more interest to me at first being as how Sierra Leone has long been listed as one of the worst countries in the world for infant mortality (death in children 1 year old or less). However, I have come to be quite fascinated with infectious diseases, but both topics are equally important of course.

Anyways, back to the MDGs. Why do we care about them? Why not? Many people want to see an end to the diseases and misfortunes that plague the lives of millions around the world. So what are the MDGs? I’ll break it down for you. At the start of the millennium, the United Nations came together and crafted a blueprint to end extreme poverty and cater to the unmet needs of the very poor. This blueprint became known as the 8 Millennium Development Goals. The goals are to 1.) eradicate extreme poverty and hunger, 2.) achieve universal primary education, 3.) promote gender equality and empower women, 4.) reduce child mortality, 5.) improve maternal health, 6.) combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases, 7.) ensure environmental sustainability, and last but not least 8.) global partnership and development (United Nations, 2013). A lot of these different goals have a relationship with each other in a negative and positive way. For example, without female empowerment and gender equality, it will be difficult to achieve universal primary education  if it is only geared towards males; or, eradicating extreme poverty and hunger would be quite a challenge with much of a nation’s population out of work and suffering from HIV/AIDS or other diseases. Am I making sense? Cool. Find out more about the individual goals at http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/

I just wanted to give a quick rundown of what the MDGs are. Be on the lookout this week to hear about what WAMM and other organizations are doing to help solve them! Maybe it will get you thinking about how you can contribute to the solution.

Peace and out,

Kaaren. 

Tag(s): Kaaren's Blog