The World Bank has opened public voting on the applications submitted to the Apps for Development Competition that challenged software developers to get new perspectives in identifying solutions to development problems. The Popular Choice Award will be determined by public vote and the winner will receive a cash award and a feature on the World [...]
Posts Tagged ‘millennium development goals’
World Bank opens public voting on ‘Apps for Development’
February 1st, 2011 |
No Comments
“Millennium goals to be achieved by 2015â€
October 23rd, 2010 |
No Comments
President Boris Tadić has stated that Serbia has an obligation and intention to achieve strategic UN Millennium Development Goals in next five years.
He said at a celebration of the UN Day that “he and his coworkers made sure to set a realistic deadline†this time.
Meeting targets
September 22nd, 2010 |
No Comments
A progress report on the the Millennium Development Goals
ON SEPTEMBER 22nd world leaders wrap up a three-day UN-sponsored summit in New York to discuss progress towards the Millennium Development Goals. These are broad development targets that were set at a similar meeting ten years ago. Most of the goals involved reductions by 2015 from 1990 levels, and there has indeed been progress towards them, at least on a global scale. But what happens globally can be dominated by what happens in one or two countries. For example, in 1990, 62% of the world’s poor people lived in just two countries, China and India. A dramatic fall in China’s poverty rate, from 60% to 16%, has therefore had a big impact on global poverty, which seems set to meet its 2015 target. But that is small comfort to the poor in many other countries where poverty has barely budged. Goals such as those involving primary enrolment and reductions in child mortality are unlikely to be met, though some, such as access to clean drinking water, are likely to be exceeded.
More Daily charts …
Innovation in global health: A spoonful of ingenuity
January 7th, 2010 |
No Comments
New ideas for raising money for medical care—and spending it
IN THE old days, the job of eradicating disease fell to governments and inter-governmental bodies. Then charities, often led by celebrities or entrepreneurs, joined in. Finally, in the Western world at least, governments accepted the need to pool their efforts with those of private donors, big and small. The effort still seems unequal to the task. Every year, nearly 11m children die before the age of five because of a mixture of poor nutrition and preventable disease. Many of the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals (calling, for example, for a plunge in child and maternal mortality by 2015) look unattainable.
The good news is that more imaginative ways of raising and spending money are now on the horizon. How well they do will depend on many details—like the quality of information flowing between poor places and the governments, firms and individuals that want to help. …
Letting a thousand flowers wither
October 20th, 2009 |
No Comments
The world will not halt the rate of reduction of biodiversity by 2010
SEEKING to alleviate poverty, reduce world hunger and protect biodiversity sounds, to your correspondent’s ears, like something a Miss World hopeful might have pledged in the 1980s. In fact, it was what a professor of soil quality at a lesser-known university in the Netherlands promised to a scientific conference that concluded on October 16th.
Addressing hundreds of biologists, ecologists and social scientists who were meeting in Cape Town under the auspices of Diversitas, an interdisciplinary group of researchers, Lijbert Brussaard of Wageningen University outlined progress made towards the Millennium Development Goals agreed by members of the United Nations in 2001. One of the targets was to achieve, by 2010, a significant reduction in the rate of loss of biodiversity. That has not happened. Neither will it do so next year. …
Centre asks states to make gram sabhas more vibrant
October 20th, 2009 |
No Comments
The Centre has asked the state govts to clearly articulate the role of gram sabhas in their policies, programmes and schemes to make them vibrant forums for rural development.
The states should clearly define the role and responsibilities of ’sarpanches’ and ‘panchs’ of the gram sabhas who should “represent the voice of people and not be [...]
India free education bill tabled
July 31st, 2009 |
No Comments
The Indian government is expected to introduce a landmark education bill in parliament after it was delayed due to procedural difficulties.
The bill seeks to guarantee universal, free and compulsory education for children aged between six and 14.
It was originally set to be discussed by lawmakers on Thursday.
The government estimates that at present 70 million children do not go to school and more than a third of the country is illiterate.
The bill has been listed for discussion in parliament’s schedule later on Friday.
It would set up new state-run local schools and force private schools to reserve at least a quarter of their places for poor children.
It will also end widespread practices by which schools impose admission fees on parents to guarantee their children a place and bureaucrats enjoy discretionary powers on deciding who to let in.
Correspondents say the government is keen to introduce the legislation into the lower house of parliament quickly, as the current parliamentary session ends next week.
Achieving universal education is one of the UN’s Millennium Development Goals to be met by the year 2015.
The BBC’s Sanjoy Majumder in Delhi says it is not clear to many critics how the government plans to pay for this.
At the moment India spends a little over 3% of its GDP on education.
Critics of the bill also say it does not cover children below the age of six and therefore fails to recognise the importance of the early years of a child’s development.
They say it also does little to address India’s inequitable school system under which there are vast discrepancies between well-funded private schools and state-run schools with poor quality teaching staff and infrastructure.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Ray Chambers: In Response to Liya Kebede: Our Responsiblity to Improving Maternal Health
July 24th, 2009 |
No Comments
For HIV, women account for 60 percent of the disease in sub-Saharan Africa and transmission from mothers to newborns is a significant, yet solvable problem.
Liya Kebede: We Need a Global Fund for Moms
July 21st, 2009 |
No Comments
Each mother who dies leaves behind a devastated family and weakened community that will eventually, somehow, affect each of us.