Despite good intentions, the United Nations' Millennium Challenge Goals appear stunted due to a failure to act on commitments. Although the number of people living in extreme poverty around the world has decreased, progress has been slow and, in light of the global financial crisis just now hitting developed nations, the future of the Millennium Challenge Goals looks bleak.
U.N. members met Sept. 25, in New York City - eight years after pledging to cut world poverty in half by 2015.
Not a single African country is on track to reach all targets set out in the Millennium Development Goals, according to U.N. observers. Few members have met their pledges made in 2002 of devoting 0.7 percent of gross domestic product toward foreign aid, according to Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann, president of the U.N. General Assembly.
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon acknowledged that the United Nations is "not moving quickly enough" to reach its goals by 2015. Ban urged members to be bold in their commitments.
There appears to be a growing frustration among stakeholders over the U.N.'s slow progress toward significantly reducing global poverty in the foreseeable future. Rock star Bono, for his part, pledged to "to continue to be a pain in the arse to people who make commitments and do not keep them."
But a global economic recession may spell disaster for the endeavor, as world food and fuel prices soar and donor nations feel the financial crunch. World Bank President Robert Zoellick expressed concerns that the unraveling U.S. financial crisis might spread to less developed nations, and the French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner argued it was "sort of unfair" to talk about development goals given the current financial environment.
These realities threaten to throw back the half-billion people who have reportedly escaped extreme poverty in the last eight years. Despite good intentions, optimistic talk and the strongest unified effort to fight global poverty in history, the U.N.'s Millennium Challenge Goals, once touted for saving the United Nations from irrelevance, now threaten to return the international organization from whence it came. If these goals are to be met - even partially - the United Nations must demonstrate it can walk the walk, not just talk the talk.
