Connecting people, ideas and resources to help the UN solve global problems.
GLOBAL
PROGRESS FALL 2010
Millennium Development Goals Reach a Turning Point This year’s Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) Summit at the UN headquarters in New York helped to focus the world’s attention on the efforts underway to combat global poverty. While problems like hunger and disease are daunting, the renewed commitments are inspiring. The Summit took place from September 20-22 and was organized to assess and accelerate progress on the eight goals set by 150 world leaders in 2000. These goals tackle the biggest problems facing the world today — including global poverty, women’s and children’s health, hunger, and education. The MDGs are the “to-do” list for solving the world’s toughest challenges. They are our goals, your goals, and the
shared goals of everyone who believes in our individual and collective power to shape a better world. The UN Foundation has been helping advance the MDGs for the past decade. Campaigns like Nothing But Nets, the Measles Initiative, and Girl Up are aimed directly at individual goals, as well as involving everyone in their accomplishment. If you have sent a malaria net to Africa, sponsored a childhood vaccination, or lowered your energy use, you have taken action to achieve the MDGs. What we must do now is redouble our personal commitments, and reach out to our family, friends, and networks to inspire them to join us. Significant progress toward achieving (continued on p.5)
Girl Up Connects the Energy of U.S. Teens and Empowers Their Peers in the Developing World The 600 million adolescent girls living in the developing world today are a generation that could change the world — but they need our help. Making up half of the largest youth generation in history, these girls represent a sure-fire way to change the future of the world’s health, economy, and stability for the better. If healthy, skilled, empowered, and educated, adolescent girls can create a new future for themselves and their families. A healthy and educated girl is one of the best ways to ensure the prosperity and well-being of an entire community in a developing country. Inspiring American girls to help girls in developing countries is the goal of the UN Foundation’s Girl Up campaign. Formally launched in September, the campaign has been active all summer with a dynamic and interactive web site, city tours, corporate partnership outreach, and online organizing campaigns that have led to several thousand
The Millennium Development Goals: 1 Eradicate Extreme Hunger and Poverty
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
8 Develop a Global Partnership for Development
UN Foundation Programs Helping Advance the MDGs:
• Nothing But Nets, has raised more than $32
million to distribute more than 3.5 million anti-malaria nets in 25 countries across Africa.
• The Measles Initiative, a UN Foundation-led partnership, has reduced measles and child mortality through immunization. So far, the reduction in global measles deaths by 78% is the single greatest contribution to achieving MDG 4.
• Girl Up, a UN Foundation campaign, mobi-
lizes support for UN programs that provide comprehensive health care, life skills education to keep girls safe from violence, and funding to allow girls to enter and stay in school.
• mHealth Alliance coordinates efforts to deploy information and communications technology to advance mobile health.
• Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves, a
UN Foundation-led public-private initiative, promotes clean and efficient household cooking, planning to enable 100 million households to acquire cleaner, lower emission, and higher performance cookstoves and fuels by 2020.
Girl Up appears on Good Morning America.
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Photo: David Evans
www.unfoundation.org
From the President
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This September at the UN Millennium Development Goals (MGD) Summit, leaders from around the world came together to accelerate progress on some of the biggest problems facing our planet. While the challenges are significant, the renewed commitments that emerged from the three-day summit are inspiring. Realizing the MDGs will take more than promises from world leaders — it’s going to take action from all of us. You’re already making a difference through your support of the UN Foundation. Your contributions provide the leverage that is needed to help the UN make a difference in millions of people’s lives every day. Thanks to you, partnerships with the UN are moving our world much closer to achieving the MDGs. Your contributions are helping the UN identify and remedy unmet needs around the world. For example, the need for malaria-preventing bed nets has declined from 300 million to just 30 million. The number of people living in extreme poverty is down by 130 million. We’ve seen a 78 percent decrease in measles deaths, and 5 million people are walking today who would otherwise have been paralyzed by polio. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon launched a historic Global Strategy for Women’s and Children’s Health earlier this year. With your support, that vision is well on its way to becoming a reality. We will continue to work with the UN — and its new agency, UN Women — to keep the needs and concerns of women and girls on the forefront of the global agenda. Reproductive health and family planning issues are at the top of this priority list and you can count on us to make sure these important topics receive the attention and resources they deserve. Right now we have a unique opportunity to move even closer to eliminating preventable diseases and giving the world’s poorest people the opportunity they need to lift themselves out of extreme poverty. It starts with increasing awareness, because making people aware of solutions is the first step in creating change. President Barack Obama’s speech at the MDG Summit emphasized the importance of innovations and partnerships in moving us closer to solving global problems. Partnerships with the UN are reaching populations previously considered unreachable. And still more innovations and partnerships on the horizon will bring us closer than ever before to eliminating preventable diseases and UN Foundation Chairman, Ted Turner, extreme poverty. and President, Senator Timothy Wirth With your support forming the backbone of our efforts, we are making real, tangible, measurable progress. I hope you’ll help us close the gap by sharing the UN Foundation’s work with the important people in your life. Please don’t underestimate your power to influence and create change — we can’t do this without you. Thank you again for all you’ve done on behalf of the UN’s work. I look forward to working with you and your family, friends, and networks — in the months and years ahead.
new supporters since June. One of Girl Up’s earliest supporters, Shannon McNamara of Basking Ridge, New Jersey, embodies the personal action and leadership that Girl Up is working to ignite. At age 17, Shannon has traveled twice to Tanzania to meet with her peers and has spearheaded the donation of more than 23,000 books to Tanzanian girls. “On my first trip to Girl Up is working to improve the lives Africa at age 15, I noticed that, of girls in countries such as Ethiopia while boys were encouraged (seen here), Liberia, Malawi and to study or play, girls were Guatemala. expected to perform household tasks like collecting water, planting beans, washing clothes, and caring for their siblings — all at the expense of going to school,” recalls Shannon. “I knew immediately that I wanted to step up my own efforts to help girls empower themselves, their families, and their communities through education.” Shannon loves the message of Girl Up because she knows how important it is to invest in girls from developing countries. She has already begun giving “High Fives” (the 5 actions the campaign invites its supporters to take to help change girls’ lives) to her family and Facebook friends, and hosted an August gathering of 40 fellow students to talk about the issues facing girls worldwide and write letters to them. Research shows that American girls think girls everywhere should have the ability to learn, be healthy, and succeed. The “for girls, by girls” approach of Girl Up mobilizes girls in the United States to raise awareness and funds for UN programs that provide girls in developing countries life-changing opportunities like the ability to go to school, see a doctor, access clean water, and stay safe from violence. The campaign’s early supporters include the MTV Networks, WNBA, Girls Inc., the National Coalition of Girls Schools, and Ivanka Trump Fine Jewelry. Trump has even designed a special bracelet, the sale of which will benefit Girl Up. The bracelet ($30 retail), which has been featured on InStyle.com and People.com’s “Style Watch” and is available at the Girl Up online store (www.GirlUp.org), was unveiled on September 21, 2010 as part of New York City’s annual Fashion’s Night Out event. The actions of another Girl Up supporter, Jenna Bailey of Cleveland, Ohio, illustrate the personal energy and digital community building that will bring more girls into the campaign in the coming years. “I became a fan of the Girl Up page on Facebook and sent the link to all my friends, who then became friends themselves,” says the 16-year-old who also donated half of the money she earned from teaching swimming lessons this summer to the campaign. “In addition, I tagged all my Facebook friends in a picture of the ‘Girlfesto.’ If getting the word out about Girl Up is this easy, raising awareness and funds in my community should be too.” The admirable humanitarian instinct of girls like Jenna and Shannon will be an important force for good as Girl Up works in the months and years ahead to unite girls in the common cause of a better world. n
Sincerely yours,
Timothy E. Wirth
Photo: David Evans
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Cooking Up Solutions The Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves
Photo: GTZ
Cooking shouldn’t kill you — but in developing countries it does. For more than 3 billion people, exposure to smoke is an inescapable byproduct of preparing a meal over an open fire or with a traditional cookstove. World Health Organization research has found that exposure to cookstove smoke is responsible for 1.9 million deaths annually worldwide. It’s one of the top five health risks in developing countries, predominantly affecting women and children, and contributes to a range of chronic illnesses, including lung cancer, heart disease, pneumonia, and low birth weight. Think about it: cooking a meal is one of the most dangerous activities for a woman in the developing world. Five hundred million households rely on firewood, coal, dung, and biomass for fuel. Apart from the grave health effects, inefficient combustion means much of that fuel is wasted — and its collection
degrades natural resources, accelerates deforestation, and contributes to climate What’s more, the timechange. consuming task of gathering fuel falls almost exclusively upon women and girls — time that could be spent getting an education or starting a small business. Women and girls also face risk of attack while they forage for fuel, particularly around refugee camps and conflict zones. Recent advances in cookstove design, testing, and monitoring suggest that the moment has arrived to take clean cookstoves to scale. Cookstove programs underway in India, Mexico, and Peru also signal new and vital support from country governments that can help make sure stoves and fuel sources are appropriate for their countries’ cultures. That’s why the UN Foundation led the formation of the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves, a bold, new partnership to save lives, improve livelihoods, empower women, and combat climate change by creating a thriving global market for clean and efficient household cooking solutions. The Alliance’s “100 by 20” goal calls for 100 million homes to adopt clean and efficient stoves and fuels by 2020, a move toward a long-term vision of universal adoption. Learn more about the Alliance at www.unfoundation.org. n
Women in Malawi using a clean cookstove.
Polio Eradication Faces New Challenges
“Together, we can make sure no child ever suffers from this tragic, crippling disease again.” Steve Strickland Senior UN Foundation Liaison Officer for the GPEI
The Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) has been working since 1988 to make polio the first viral disease since smallpox to be conquered worldwide. The UN Foundation has been working closely with its core partners since 1999. The GPEI has reached an impressive 99 percent of its goal, thanks to a global immunization effort that provided lifetime protection from polio infection to hundreds of millions of children. The world now has a narrow window of opportunity to reach the remaining one percent of the goal, although significant challenges remain. Four remaining endemic countries — Afghanistan, India, Nigeria, and Pakistan — continue to export the wild polio virus, causing outbreaks in neighboring countries that had recently been polio-free. The problem has brought new urgency to interrupting transmission within those four borders. “Polio will not go quietly into history,” says
Steve Strickland, Senior UN Foundation Liaison Officer for the GPEI. “Even though we have eliminated it in more than 140 countries, the final four are proving to be especially difficult. But it most certainly can be done.” Recent successes reported by the GPEI include a record-low eight polio cases in Nigeria this year, compared to hundreds last year, and the lowest number of polio cases reported in India in ten years. Yet polio has the capacity to reappear in any part of the world, especially poor countries and regions with weak health infrastructures and sub-standard sanitation systems. “We saw multiple outbreaks of the virus this spring and summer,” says Strickland. “A virus migration from India caused an outbreak in Tajikistan, which hasn’t had a case of polio for more than a dozen years. And an outbreak in Angola, caused by a wild polio virus from Nigeria, has now spread to the DR Congo. These are (continued on p.4)
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NOTHING BUT NETS Fills Urgent Need in the Central African Republic Nothing But Nets spent the summer months continuing to provide life-saving, anti-malaria bed nets to families throughout Africa. A highlight was distributing 20,000 nets in Senegal with the campaign’s founding partner, NBA Cares, as part of their Basketball Without Borders activities. NBA players, legends, and coaches helped the Nothing But Nets team and local partners deliver nets to families in the village of Rufisque, speaking with families and helping them hang their nets. This distribution was a key step toward achieving full coverage for Senegalese families in need of bed nets. In addition, the Nothing But Nets “Buzz Tour” continued to travel around the country to spread the “buzz” about ending malaria deaths by 2015. Thousands came out to the tour’s many “buzz stops” in Denver, Houston, Los Angeles, and Seattle, just to name a few. Furthermore, Nothing But Nets has stepped forward to fill an urgent need identified by the United Nations: more bed nets for the
Central African Republic. Nothing But Nets took action by teaming up with singer and actress Mandy Moore and Population Services International (PSI) to get a net to every family in the Central African Republic by the end of this year. Reaching this goal will require the delivery of 837,000 bed nets. “Insecticide-treated bed nets are one of the easiest ways to protect families from malaria-carrying mosquitoes,” says Moore, who has been active in the fight against malaria since she saw its impact firsthand during a trip to South Sudan last year. “I’m proud to be part of this initiative to send nets and save lives, and am hopeful we can reach our goal in the Central African Republic.” Malaria, a disease that has existed for centuries and killed millions, is preventable. Mandy Moore’s voice, and the global reach of social media, is helping spread the buzz about the urgency of ending deaths from this disease within the next five years. n
Korean Nuns Pledge to Raise $1 Million for UN Girls’ Education and Empowerment Programs A group of nuns are proof that support to tackle global problems transcends boundaries, religions, and generations. An interfaith association of Korean nuns from the Buddhist, Roman Catholic, Anglican, and Won-Buddhist religions has pledged to raise $1 million for the UN Foundation to help fund UN programs to educate and empower girls in Ethiopia. The nuns’ group, known as Samsohoe, visited the UN Foundation in June to deliver a $200,000 check and to learn more about the programs their pledge will support. They were also eager to discuss their motivation: several of the group’s members were orphaned during the Korean War and felt a debt of gratitude toward UN Peacekeepers from Ethiopia who protected and cared for them. According to Rev. Jijung, one of the four Samsohoe members who participated in the visit, “this is our way of saying thank you, sixty years later.” In the Korean language, “samsohoe” means “a group of three smiles.” It derives from an ancient Korean legend, and in modern times, the term “samso” describes friends with different religious backgrounds. Founded in 1988, Samsohoe is the first Korean organization of its kind led by female spiritual leaders. The UN Foundation looks forward to partnering with them as our work continues to unfold. n
From left to right — Rev. Jijung; Sr. Beata; Rev. Jinmyung; Kathy Calvin, Chief Executive Officer, UN Foundation; Sr. Catherine
(Polio Eradication Initiative continued from p.3) dramatic reminders that we now stand at a critical turning point in the fight against polio.” Strickland says that the multi-million dollar shortfall in the GPEI’s budget has caused postponement of planned immunizations in five African countries. “We can’t keep the virus contained indefinitely,” he says, “which is why vaccination leading to eradication is such a smart economic investment. And it costs far less than treatment and control.” “Curtailing immunizations carries considerable risks, particu-
larly with infectious diseases like polio,” he notes. “It is all too easy for the virus to jump borders and regain a foothold in countries where it had once disappeared.” GPEI is intensifying efforts to find new or renewed financial commitments from around the world to get the polio eradication campaign back ahead of the disease. “Together, we can make sure no child ever suffers from this tragic, crippling disease again,” Strickland says. “We have the tools and know-how, and we will never have a better chance than we do today.” n
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Haiti’s Resilience Put to the Test Robert Skinner, Associate Director of the UN Foundation’s New York Office The first thing one notices when arriving in Haiti these days is the intensity of the people, native as well as volunteers from abroad, working to bring this battered nation back to life. Hard work is a badge of honor and dedication; in some ways, it is the noble public face that hides a range of more complex internal feelings about the state of things as we approach the one-year anniversary of the January 12 earthquake. For me, and many others who spend time in Haiti, I expect, the daily and even hourly swings from hope to despair create a kind of emotional whiplash. Walking with a police patrol through the isolated Camp Corail, which is about a 25 minute drive — if traffic cooperates — from Port-au-Prince, I was both encouraged and worried about the future. The camp is well organized with tents in neatly arranged and well spaced rows. Food and water supplies seemed adequate. Children approached us to talk, laugh, and kick soccer balls with the multi-national group of Haitian and UN police and Peruvian peacekeepers that guard and patrol the camp, keeping the roughly 6,000 inhabitants safe. The smiles of everyone in the camp provided a sense that, while life is difficult, there is a way forward. Still, the questions nag. What would a hurricane, or even a strong storm, do to these neatly ordered tents? Where can these people get work out here, so far from any community
or marketplace? Will the new transitional wood frame structures being built, at a hoped for pace of 5 per day, become permanent? I posed these questions to the committed individuals in the Haitian government, the UN, and NGO communities, and after hearing their realistic but creative and positive ideas, the pendulum swung back to hope. Haitians know that the world’s attention on their small country will not last, particularly if things don’t seem to be going right. However, if the Interim Haiti Recovery Commission (IHRC) can convince the people of Haiti, international governments, and NGOs that it is a serious and well organized decision-making body, then resources will continue to flow into the country. And further, if the committed team I met with at Haiti’s Inter-Ministerial Committee for Territorial Management can find a way to integrate their plans with those of the IHRC, the idea of the much discussed decentralization of Haiti might become a reality. The world is rooting and working for Haiti, but we all have to stay in the game together and for the long haul if its people are to have a chance at a better future. As always, the United Nations will be at the forefront of that effort, with the UN Foundation behind them every step of the way. n
“Hard work is a badge of honor and dedication ... it is the noble public face that hides a range of more complex internal feelings about the state of things as we approach the one-year anniversary of the January 12 earthquake.” Robert Skinner UN Foundation
Senator Timothy Wirth and USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah discuss the U.S. Government's approach to the MDGs at the UN Week Digital Media Lounge.
(Millennium Development Goals continued from p.1) the MDGs was widely reported at the Summit, including a decline in the number of people living in extreme poverty (130 million fewer people than in the year 2000). Additionally, the number of women dying due to complications in childbirth or pregnancy has decreased by 34%. But progress has been far from uniform and has actually slowed as some governments sharply curtailed funding due to the global economic recession. This creates an important opportunity for people who support organizations like the UN Foundation to step up to the challenge and lead by example. Going forward, the UN Foundation will expand programs like Nothing But Nets, the recently launched Girl Up campaign, and the newly announced Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves to help partners support the UN’s work.
As part of this global effort to summon universal action in support of the MDGs, Ted Turner was named to a new 21-member MDG Advocacy Group created to galvanize worldwide involvement. In a video message to the world, Turner said, “Do something today to advance one of the eight Millennium Development Goals at unfoundation.org. It’s easy and it’s within our reach. We can all make the world a better place.” n
Jeffrey Sachs, Ted Turner, and Her Majesty Queen Rania Al Abdullah during an event at the MDG Summit in New York.
www.unfoundation.org
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Strategic Alliance Strengthens U.S.-UN Relationship The United Nations Foundation and the United Nations Association of the USA (UNA-USA) have agreed to form a new strategic alliance that will build on the strengths of both organizations in helping support the work of the United Nations. For more than six decades, UNA-USA has been at the forefront of advocacy on behalf of the UN. Over the last twelve years, the UN Foundation has worked to connect people, ideas, and resources to the UN. This new alliance will bring together the power of UNA’s strong chapter-based network with the UN Foundation’s dynamic online presence and campaign expertise, and the innovative Washington-based advocacy of the Better World Campaign. Both organizations, including over 125 chapters and 12,000 members of the UNA and the hundreds of thousands of supporters of the work of the UN Foundation, will increase public awareness and strategic advocacy work that helps the UN make the world a better place. For more information, please visit www.unfoundation.org. n
To learn more, visit www.unfoundation.org
Eye on the UN This September at the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDG) Summit in New York, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon launched the Global Strategy for Women’s and Children’s Health. This strategy is a call to action to improve the health of women and children worldwide to advance progress on all of the MDGs. Focusing on women’s and children’s health is one of the best ways to accelerate progress on the full range of global issues facing the planet today. And progress is indeed being made. Childhood deaths have been reduced from 12.5 million in 1990 to 8.8 million in 2008. And a new report sees a 34% decrease in the number of women dying due to complications during pregnancy and childbirth — from an estimated 546,000 in 1990 to 358,000 in 2008. Though the decline is impressive, the same report confirms that 1,000 women continue to die from pregnancy-related causes every day. As stated by United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, “No person of conscience should stand by as such needless deaths continue. It is said that a society can be judged by how it treats women and children. Just as no woman should die needlessly in childbirth, no person of conscience should stand by as such senseless deaths continue. Each of us can make a difference. Together, we can improve the health and well-being of women and children. When they thrive, so will our world.” As part of a growing global consensus that improving women’s and children’s health is the best way to help achieve all of the MDGs, the UN Foundation and partner organizations are committing $400 million to make motherhood safer, educate and empower more adolescent girls, and protect children from preventable diseases. n
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Polio Eradication Faces New Challenges Korean Nuns Pledge to Raise $1 Million Haiti’s Resilience Put to the Test Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves UN Foundation and UN Association of the USA Join Forces
PERMIT NO. 114 LANGHORNE, PA