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Remarks to High-level Event on the Millennium Development Goals
United Nations, September 25, 2008
InterAction Chairman and Save the Children President & CEO Charles M. MacCormack

Prime Minister Stoltenberg, your Excellencies, thank you for the opportunity to speak at this roundtable. I speak as chairman of Interaction, the largest coalition of U.S.-based international nongovernmental organizations focused on the world’s poor and most vulnerable people, and also as President of Save the Children, a global development and humanitarian organization that works in over 100 countries to bring positive, lasting change to children.

The Millennium Declaration in 2000 represented an unprecedented commitment by world leaders, from both donor and developing countries alike, to help the world’s poor. They recognized that suffering and despair in one part of our globe affects all of us. They undertook to eliminate extreme poverty and improve the condition of people across our world by 2015. Some progress has been made, but, as speakers before me have made clear, we are not on track. Time is running out. I add my voice to a growing chorus calling on government leaders to summon the political will this week to accelerate action and deliver on promises they have made.

New Development Partnership

We know what needs to be done, so let’s do it and do it together. Therein lies one challenge. Look around the room. Where are the foundations, nongovernmental organizations (NGO), religious organizations and corporations? They are critical partners in reducing poverty and improving people’s lives. But their voices and views are not well represented at this official roundtable. Development requires decisive governmental action: governmental leaders must keep their promises. But development is not solely a governmental task.

Private philanthropy has become a major partner driving growth and development in poorer countries. In 2005, for example, private philanthropic flows from the United States to developing countries were $10 billion greater – I repeat greater -- than U.S. Official Development Assistance. Interaction members alone mobilize annually over $6 billion in private contributions by the American people. That doesn’t mean governments should sit back. To the contrary. We – government and the private sector -- need to develop new ways to better leverage what we all are doing and invest commensurate with need. We need to develop new partnerships so we don’t squander valuable resources. The upcoming Doha Conference on Financing for Development should address this challenge. The lives of the poor are at stake.

Education

Today 29 million more children will go to school than in 1999. Let us celebrate that fact. We have made and can make a difference. Yet more than twice that number – 72 million -- remain out of school, the majority of who are girls. Over half live in countries affected by conflict or face emergencies in which many governments mounting international humanitarian responses overlook their educational needs.

We call for renewed and decisive action to achieve MDG 2 as governments have committed:

• First, investment in basic education must be increased with at least half of those resources going to fragile states that are home to a large percentage of the world’s children who are out of school. The Education for All Fast Track Initiative should also establish a fund to support education in those countries. Educating these children is vitally important, but it can also be dangerous. We pay tribute to our four NGO colleagues killed last month in Afghanistan as they worked to help Afghan children gain an education.
  
• Second, early childhood education, an integral part of the Education for All mandate, is a necessary stepping stone to achieve MDG 2, since children from illiterate and marginalized households need preparation prior to school entry in order to succeed. Policies and investment supporting early childhood development must be prioritized and strengthened.
  
• Third, too often conflict and natural disaster prevent children from going to school. Governments should establish policies that ensure education is an integral part of every international response to humanitarian emergencies.

Education is key both to development, but also to health. Education enhances child survival, and improves the ability of women to look after children.  There are no quick fixes or easy answers to advancing quality basic education and overcoming the digital divide. Without that progress, the same health problems will reoccur. 

Health

Government leaders must also recommit to accelerated, better resourced and collaborative action to achieve the three health-related millennium goals on child mortality, maternal mortality and disease.

Globally, child mortality, although unacceptably high, has declined by over 20 percent since 1990. Two million Africans now receive life-saving antitretroviral drugs. However, nearly 10 million children under five still die each year – many in the world’s poorest countries in sub-Saharan Africa, most of which remain off track. 

To achieve and sustain high rates of coverage and impact of life-saving interventions, we need to focus on building the integrated health systems and programs that address a continuum of maternal, newborn, and child health needs; link households, first-level health facilities, and referral facilities; and engage community members as real partners in meeting these health needs.

We need to allocate resources to better match the causes of illness and death; on those countries where most of these deaths occur; and on those interventions we know work and are feasible in low-resource settings.  With the growing crisis of rising food prices and child hunger, nutrition requires much greater attention as an underlying cause of more than one-third of under-five deaths.

We must also face the unpleasant fact that the risk of dying is much greater for the poorest quintile of populations. We need to design, fund and implement strategies to ensure that the poor (including the urban poor) are not left behind. The principle of social inclusion applies to the other MDGs as well. Unless marginalized and excluded groups also benefit in the progress, we will not achieve our goals.

With regard to MDGs 4, 5, and 6, we call for:

• First, increased financial and technical assistance for countries that put in place credible maternal, newborn and child health strategies. No country that prioritized MDGs 4 and 5, and has a well-conceived plan for achieving these goals, should fail to deliver on it because of a lack of resources.
  
• Second, we call for increased investment in health systems, including the training, deployment, and support of community level health workers, improved logistics managements systems, and strategies for ensuring access to basic health services for poor and marginalized populations. Those services include ante-natal, basic and comprehensive obstetrical and neonatal care, immunization services, prevention and treatment of malaria and HIV/AIDS, access to voluntary contraception and treatment of pneumonia and diarrhea.
  
• Third, there must be greater emphasis on nutrition and hygiene, including improved breastfeeding practices, the opportunity for all mothers and children to access a healthy and varied diet, and investment in clean water, sanitation facilities, and improved hygiene practices.
  
• Fourth, to tackle the HIV/AIDS epidemic, especially in the hardest hit countries in Africa and among women, we need to ensure delivery of comprehensive HIV prevention – the right interventions focused on the right people at the right scale.  In particular, we need to scale up delivery of prevention of mother to child transmission services. Such combined measures could avert half of the infections projected to occur between now and 2015.
  
• We need to ensure those living with HIV, have access to treatment.
  
• Finally, care of orphans and vulnerable children (OVC) is a huge issue with enormous social and economic impacts, especially in Africa. We must integrate prevention and treatment efforts into current OVC programming and expand cross-sectoral programming to address the health, education, protection and economic security needs.

Conclusion

At this half way point toward our 2015 rendezvous with destiny, we face a fork in the road. On the one hand, we see clearly what must be done. We have the tools to do it, but these solutions won’t make any difference if they fail to reach those in need. We have seen what is possible: when we put our shoulder to these tasks and work together, considerable progress can be made. On the other hand, the world is full of other challenges and pressing issues. We have seen how competing priorities and lack of political will throw us off track. Which path will we take?

Let us all – government, civil society, the private sector -- recommit this week, here and now, to complete the job we have begun. Let us join together with newfound determination, devote increased resources and develop concrete plans. This is an historic mission that can, indeed must be achieved.