Make Government departments help meet the Millennium Development Goals

White Band Day 2007 TUC demand

Listen to the South!

Support global standards

Make Government departments help meet the Millennium Development Goals

ASK YOUR MP to support a requirement on every Government department to specify what it will do to help meet the Millennium Development Goals

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were agreed at the United Nations Millennium Summit in September 2000 and nearly 190 countries have subsequently signed up to them. The eight Millennium Development Goals are:

• eradicate extreme poverty and hunger ;
• achieve universal primary education ;
• promote gender equality and empower women ;
• reduce child mortality ;
• improve maternal health ;
• combat HIV and AIDS, malaria and other diseases ;
• ensure environmental sustainability ; and
• develop a global partnership for development .

The international trade union movement wants to see a ninth goal - the development of decent work.

The Goals were introduced as part of a wider attempt to encourage the international community to stop talking about making a difference in the developing world and join forces to start doing something about it. Alongside the Goals, a series of 18 targets was also drawn up to give the international community a number of tangible improvements to aim for within a fixed period of time, and also make it easier for them to measure their progress to date.

The intention is that almost all of these targets will be achieved by 2015. Unfortunately, while some significant progress is being made towards meeting some of the targets in some of the affected countries, in many cases progress is patchy, too slow or non-existent.

Comprehensive spending review

Government departments will have targets set for them by the Comprehensive Spending Review - due to be published at the end of October - and the money that allocates to each department will be tied to targets set for each Ministry.

The TUC wants to see each department given targets to reduce international poverty by saying what they will do to contribute to meeting the Millennium Development Goals.

At the moment, most of the work done on meeting the Millennium Development Goals is concentrated on the Department for International Development, but we want to see joined up government, with each department contributing something. The Department of Health has a clear interest in the health-related Goals, and the TUC has welcomed the International Health Partnership launched by the Prime Minister at the start of September. But all Government departments can make some contribution, and without action across the British government, our contribution to meeting the Goals will not be enough.