The World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland has called for renewed commitment to the U.N. Millennium Development Goals (MGDs), aimed at halving extreme poverty, boosting health and education and further empowering women across the developing world by 2015.
World leaders called for action as the current steps made around the world are not nearly enough to achieve the Millennium Development Goals by 2015. The secretary general of the UN, Ban Ki-Moon, the British prime minister, Gordon Brown, the singer and activist Bono and the multimillionaire and philanthropist Bill Gates are some of the personalities sounding the alarm:
Those goals fixed a 2015 deadline to tackle extreme poverty and improve access to education and healthcare. "Too many nations have fallen behind. We need fresh ideas and fresh approaches. It is unacceptable that one child dies of hunger every day, every five seconds," Ban told a news conference at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland.
This week in Seattle, an extraordinary group of people – scientists, policymakers, and advocates – came together for three days to discuss what can be done to stop malaria. Melinda and I issued a challenge to those attending the meeting. We asked them to begin charting a course to eradicate malaria – not just to control or reduce it, but to work toward a time when no one on earth is infected with malaria, and no mosquitoes carry the disease.
