Good News from the United Nations

This story has been reported by several news channels in the last few days, but it's worth repeating.

The UN has reached one of the millennium development goals ahead of schedule. Goal number 7 is to "Ensure environmental sustainability." Within that goal, target 7C is to "Halve, by 2015, the proportion of the population without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation". That's the one that's been achieved. As UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon says, "The successful efforts to provide greater access to drinking water are a testament to all who see the MDGs not as a dream, but as a vital tool for improving the lives of millions of the poorest people.”

Read more here.

The Millennium Development Goals: It's Time for a "People's Plan of Action"

Recognizing that "individuals, companies and non-governmental organizations need to stand alongside their governments to advance the best solutions to extreme poverty, to sustain public engagement and to hold their governments accountable," through a "people's plan of action" a group of Young Global Leaders have made action-oriented pledges to support the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) by 2015.

One such individual, Ayla Goksel, through the Husnu M. Ozyegin Foundation, has pledged by 2014 to provide access to sustainable income-generating activities for 1,600 people in rural Turkey and to ensure 27,000 children have access to education in primary and secondary schools and programs built by the Foundation. This pledge supports MDG1 on poverty and productive employment, and MDG2 on education.

In addition, Ms Goksel has pledged by 2011, through the Mother Child Education Foundation (ACEV), to impact approximately 1 million families in Turkey through increased awareness of early childhood development and education; to raise US$ 20 million for these activities; to provide preschool, parenting and literacy education to 400,000 young children, parents and illiterate women; and to train 2,500 new volunteer instructors for this program, thereby contributing to MDG2 on primary education, MDG3 on gender equality, MDG4 on child health and MDG8 on building a global partnership for development.