At a follow-up meeting to the Millennium Development Goals summit, top United Nations officials renewed calls for accelerated progress on global development efforts and continued support for poor countries beyond the MDGs’ 2015 deadline.
“Progress towards the goals and targets has often been slow and uneven,” U.N. Development Program Administrator Helen Clark said at the meeting’s opening session. “Achieving the MDGs requires addressing the underlying bottlenecks blocking progress, and action to reach those who are marginalized in their societies. Following the MDG Summit we need to redouble our efforts to tackle these issues.”
Clark also stressed the need for a “more ambitious development agenda beyond 2015” and suggested two ways the development community can boost and sustain progress on the eight goals: aiming for more “catalytic” impact from global development efforts and focusing on equity and inclusion.
Meantime, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called for bold actions and urgent investments in order to protect the gains already achieved by the international community.
The meeting, held June 2-3 in Tokyo, Japan, aimed to track activities and progress on the MDGs since the main U.N. summit in September 2010.
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