In keeping with our practice of the past six years, the United Nations Association of the USA (UNA-USA) has dedicated its 2008 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, Environmental Sustainability as an Essential Tool for Poverty Alleviation is an issue that has profound implications on environmental, 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 at the half-way point, the MDGs have been met with uneven success. This is especially true for Goal 7 which highlights the important relationship between the environment and poverty reduction.
Goal 7 explores how integrating the principles of sustainable development can not only help reduce poverty, but ensure that the world’s resources are used safely and efficiently. According to the World Commission on Environment and Development that first gave prominence to the term nearly two decades ago, sustainable development is defined as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”
MDG 7: Ensuring Environmental Sustainability
Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 7 includes four key aspects—all of which serve as the foundation for the UN’s global agenda to ensure environmental sustainability.
They include:
- Integrating the principles of sustainable development into country policies and programs and reversing loss of environmental resources;
- Decreasing biodiversity loss, and achieving, by 2010, a significant reduction in the rate of loss;
- Reducing by one-half the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation;
- Achieving significant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers by 2020.
Ensuring environmental sustainability is key to achieving all of the Millennium Development Goals. As stated in a report issued by InterAction entitled, U.S. Contributions to Reducing Global Poverty: An Assessment of the U.S. and the Millennium Development Goals, “A healthy environment provides the building blocks for the primary goal of the MDGs: poverty alleviation. … The loss or degradation of environmental goods and services undermines sustainable development and leads to such negative impacts as poor nutrition, the spread of disease and conflict over scarce resources. Ultimately, it is the world’s poor that are most dependent on environmental goods and services for daily living, and, therefore, also most vulnerable to their loss.”
Within the UN system there are several agencies and programs that work to promote sustainable development. UN-Habitat, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) and the UN Economic and Social Council’s Division of Sustainable Development are among those that most actively seek to help nations meet MDG 7. Their work in this area is guided by a global program known as Agenda 21, which was approved at the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Agenda 21, defined by the Division of Sustainable Development, is “a comprehensive plan of action to be taken globally, nationally and locally by organizations of the United Nations System, Governments, and Major Groups in every area in which human [activity impacts the environment.]”
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 Leigh Bernstein at lbernstein@unausa.org or Liubov Grechen at lgrechen@unausa.org