The Challenge

In 2000 world leaders signed the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). These are 8 targets to reduce global poverty and disease by 2015.

Accomplishing these super ambitious goals will transform the lives of billions of the world's poorest people. However it will require major investments which were out of reach for many developing countries.

By signing on to goal 8 and committing to build a global partnership for development, the world's richees countries acknowledged that assistance was needed to supplement and enable the investments made by poor countries themselves to reach the goals.

Wealthy countries made ambitious commitments to increase development assistance in the past few years.

While some countries have substantially increased funding, many commitments have yet to be fulfilled. Following through on these commitments has become vital as poor countries struggle to cope with the impact of the world's financial crisis and soaring cost of food.

The Opportunity

The Millennium Development Goals have already provided large, new investments that have dramatically helped in reduce poverty and have produced impactful results and have improved the lives of millions of people.

The numbers speak for themselves: approximately 3.2 million Africans are receiving life-saving HIV/AIDS treatment (up from 50,000 in 2002).

88 million bed nets to protect families from malaria have been delivered by the Global Fund alone.

Major progress has also been made in getting children to school. 34 million African children attended schools for the 1st time between 1999 and 2006. This was in part due to to the savings from debt relief and development assistance for education.

The results are solid proof that development assistance has a transformative impact on the poorest countries. This is especially true when it's combined with committed and transparent leadership and policies aimed at economic growth.

With only five years left until the 2015 deadline to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has called on world leaders to attend a summit in New York on 20-22 September 2010 to accelerate progress towards the MDGs www.un.org/millenniumgoals/

BloggersUnite.org calls on all bloggers to become part of this million person movement.

The Goals as set 10 years ago, fall into 7 main categories.

END POVERTY & HUNGER
www.un.org/millenniumgoals/poverty.shtml
www.bloggersunite.org/event/the-international-day-for-the-eradication-of-po...

UNIVERSAL EDUCATION
www.un.org/millenniumgoals/education.shtml
www.bloggersunite.org/event/international-literacy-day

GENDER EQUALITY
www.un.org/millenniumgoals/gender.shtml
www.bloggersunite.org/events/category/women

CHILD HEALTH
www.un.org/millenniumgoals/childhealth.shtmlMATERNAL HEALTH
www.bloggersunite.org/events/category/health

MATERNAL & CHILD HEALTH
www.un.org/millenniumgoals/maternal.shtml
www.bloggersunite.org/event/fight-for-preemies-1

COMBAT HIV/AIDS
www.un.org/millenniumgoals/aids.shtml
www.bloggersunite.org/event/world-aids-day

ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY
www.un.org/millenniumgoals/environ.shtml
www.bloggersunite.org/events/category/environment

GLOBAL PARTNERSHIPS
www.un.org/millenniumgoals/global.shtml

THESE are each major problems that we face. To address them it's important to share knowledge across different specialities and professions. At the intersection of knowledge is where breakthroughs occur.

For this very reason Uniting Bloggers around Blog Action Day Events, where bloggers from different parts of the globe share stories, research, ideas, and suggestions with each other, is of vital importance.

Each of these problems has a solution. BloggersUnite.org, a loose affiliation of bloggers from around the world, has the power and the energy and the technology to solve each of these issues, especially when joining forces with organizations such as One International, whose founder is Bono, the lead singer for U2.

One International www.one.org/international/about/, is "a campaign and advocacy organisation with more than 2 million members committed to the fight against extreme poverty and preventable disease, particularly in Africa. Cofounded by Bono and other campaigners, ONE is nonpartisan and works closely with African policy makers and activists."

To do this, it is critical that we connect with each other by blogging about the issues, sharing ideas, and solutions.

There are events taking place on BloggersUnite now that address almost all of these issues aside from a couple.

Participation is voluntary. When combined with the voices of millions bloggers have the power to massively move the world forward in the direction of achieving these outstanding goals.