UN Day 2009 is a program of The United Nations Association of the United States (UNA-USA), a non-profit organization that builds support for the ideals and work of the UN among the American people.
Learn more about how UNA-USA supports the UN every day of the year.
In keeping with our practice of the past six years, the United Nations Association of the USA (UNA-USA) has dedicated its 2009 United Nations Day commemorations to one of the UN Millennium Development Goals, a set of time-bound goals which form a universally-accepted blueprint for global development. This year's topic, MDG 8: Develop a Global Partnership for Development, is an issue that has profound implications on development, education, health, and economic conditions in countries and regions across the globe.
Introduction
The UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are a set of 8 global objectives aimed at improving the lives of the world's poorest people. The Goals, which cover a range of human development issues from providing universal primary education to halting the spread of HIV, were adopted at the 2000 UN Millennium Summit by 189 nations and have spurred unprecedented global efforts to help the world's poor.
The MDGs, which are slated to be met by 2015, provide a framework for action throughout the United Nations system. Now beyond the half-way point, the MDGs have been met with uneven success.
Goal 8 explores the role that nations can play in mutually securing future development. While the first seven MDGs focus on immediate solutions to specific problems, MDG 8 recognizes the importance of systemic change in enacting lasting solutions to the problem of poverty. Developed and developing nations alike must reform the international systems of politics and trade to meet the needs of the world's most impoverished peoples and free poor nations from crushing burdens of debt. Moreover, the global community must work to deliver the medicines, technologies, and opportunities that open to the world's poorest the path of progress. In conjunction with these broad reforms, developed nations must meet and expand their pledges of multilateral aid to poor countries.
MDG 8: Ensuring Environmental Sustainability
The targets for MDG 8 include:
The United States and the MDGS, a report by InterAction, outlines three areas in which major reforms are necessary: official development assistance, trade, and debt relief. The United States has made some progress in each of these categories, yet more work remains to be done.
The U.S. is the largest single provider of official development assistance in terms of total dollars, but U.S. aid lags behind that of many Western European nations as a percentage of gross national income. American assistance totals 0.22% of GNI, far below both the 0.47% average of major donor countries and the UN's target rate of 0.7%. Moreover, over two-thirds of U.S. aid goes to middle-income and high-income countries, and many of the world's poorest nations are not among top recipients of U.S. aid. Non-governmental aid, including remittances and foreign direct investment, similarly favors middle-income countries over the world's most impoverished.
U.S. trade promises, meanwhile, offer a brighter future for the poor — but only if the U.S. lives up to its guarantees. Federal lawmaking and exceptions to trade rules have frequently collapsed progressive trade reforms.
Recent expansions to and reforms of debt relief programs have removed the burden from many of the world's poorest nations and siginificantly reduced other countries' arrears. These initiatives have freed developing nations to pursue improvements in national education and healthcare schemes (see Global Partnerships in Action! for more). The U.S. should ensure future multilateral interest in debt relief with pledges to the World Bank, the African Development Bank, and other organizations to underwrite debt cancellation schemes.
Naturally, the accomplishment of MDG 8 depends upon the involvement of a broad spectrum of international organizations. Economic institutions, including the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the Paris Club will be central to the goals of trade and debt relief, while the targets of MDG 8 in technology and health will make agencies like the UN Development Programme, Integrated Framework for Trade-related Technical Assistance, and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria key to international efforts.
United Nations Day History
In the spring of 1945, representatives of fifty nations gathered in San Francisco to put the final touches to a document of far-reaching consequences — the Charter of the United Nations. Enthusiastically supported by the United States, the U.N. Charter went into effect on October 24, 1945. Two years later the U.N. General Assembly adopted a U.S.-sponsored resolution declaring October 24th United Nations Day, to be commemorated annually by all member-states of the United Nations. Since 1947, U.N. Day has been observed in nations large and small around the world.
In the United States, each President, beginning with Harry Truman, has issued a proclamation asking citizens to observe U.N. Day and to reflect upon the importance of the United Nations to our national interest, as well as to each American individually. At the time of the drafting of the Charter, close to one hundred U.S. national non-governmental organizations were represented at San Francisco, giving their advice and support to the official U.S. delegation. Out of these organizations grew the United States Committee for the United Nations, a group consulted regularly by our government on matters related to the United Nations. In 1961, President Kennedy appointed Robert S. Benjamin, Chairman of United Artists Corporation, as chairman of the U.S. Committee for the United Nations and as the first National U.N. Day Chairman.
In 1964, the U.S. Committee for the United Nations merged with the American Association for the United Nations to become the United Nations Association of the United States of America (UNA-USA). UNA-USA, under the guidance, first of Robert Benjamin, and later under other outstanding Americans, took on the coordination and supervision of the National U.N. Day Program working closely with the National U.N. Day Chairman.
Over the years, the observance of U.N. Day in hundreds of communities all over the United States has changed significantly. In the early years, community observances tended to be symbolic events consisting of an international dinner in the town's high school or the U.N. flag flying from an official building. Today's program delves into world issues that are on the agenda of the United Nations and that affect every American citizen. The university campus, city hall, the governor's mansion have become sites for serious debates of issues before the U.N. and how to approach them through international cooperation.
Those born after the founding of the U.N. in 1945 have come to realize that the U.N. offers no "quick fix," but is an instrument through which nations can identify common problems, set international standards, and take action. The U.N. is only as strong and effective as its 192 member states make it. Citizens and non-governmental organizations play an essential role in building public support for the U.N. Your United Nations Day observance can expand that support in your community.
For general inquiries & more information, please email Roger Nokes at rnokes@unausa.org or Liubov Grechen at lgrechen@unausa.org.
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