Goal #7Environmental Sustainability
Introduction
Reducing poverty and achieving sustained development must be done in conjunction with a healthy planet. The Millennium Goals recognize that environmental sustainability is part of global economic and social well-being. Unfortunately exploitation of natural resources such as forests, land, water, and fisheries-often by the powerful few-have caused alarming changes in our natural world in recent decades, often harming the most vulnerable people in the world who depend on natural resources for their livelihood.
The Targets
Goal 7 of the Millennium Development Goals sets out by the year 2015 to:
- Integrate the principles of sustainable development into country policies and programmes and reverse the loss of environmental resources.
- Reduce biodiversity loss, achieving, by 2010, a significant reduction in the rate of loss.
- Halve, by 2015, the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation
- By 2020, to have achieved a significant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers.
Did You Know?
In our world today around 2.5 billion people do not have access to improved sanitation and some 1.2 billion people do not have access to an improved source of water. (Source:Why do the Millennium Development Goals matter? Brochure)
Achieving the Goals
In 2007 Madagascar’s government established 15 new conservation areas covering over 2.65 million acres of wildlife. The new parks will protect several threatened ecosystems including wetlands and rain forests.
Goal News
New Analysis Reveals African Countries Top List of 20 Countries Making Most Overall Progress on MDGs
As G-8 and G-20 leaders prepare to gather in Canada, new analysis issued by the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) and the United Nations Millennium Campaign finds that, in absolute terms, many of the world’s poorest countries are making the most overall progress towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) – the set of promises world leaders made to significantly reduce extreme poverty, illiteracy and disease by 2015.
Ahead of the World Cup in South Africa, former UN Secretary-General/Africa Progress Panel Chair Kofi Annan and UNDP Goodwill Ambassador/football star Didier Drogba released ‘Scoring for Africa – An Alternative Guide to the World Cup’. The report compares statistics from African nations on issues such as economic growth, CO2 emissions, access to education and human development, with the nations they will face on the football field. It finds that Africans simply do not have a fair playing field on issues such as trade or the fight against climate change.
Climate Change has a disproportionate impact on the poorest countries, who have contributed the least to the problem. Africa, for instance, accounts for less than 3 percent of global emissions, yet its 850 million inhabitants face some of the biggest challenges from drought and disrupted water supplies. Moreover, poor countries lack the basic infrastructure and financial means to respond adequately to these challenges. Decades of development gains are under threat due to climate change.
Children and Youth all over Ghana will participate in the campaign with a clear message to leaders “We Can’t Wait; Stand Up, Take Action, End Climate Change and Poverty Now.’ The campaign will call on Ghanaians and the world to stand up for the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), and take actions that send clear and powerful message to governments and leadership; Keep your promises to end poverty and achieve the MDGs.
