Efforts to improve the living conditions of children around the world are achieving success, but not fast enough to achieve the UN targets, an audience in Cambridge heard last week.
Efforts to improve the living conditions of children around the world are achieving success, but not fast enough to achieve the UN targets, an audience in Cambridge heard last week.
Giving the Humanitarian Centre annual lecture at Emmanuel College, Alan Court, UNICEF's Director of Programme Division, addressed the vital topics of child poverty, disease and mortality in the world, and how these trends were changing.
In a talk entitled “The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the State of the World's Children”, Mr Court tackled issues faced by both developed and developing countries. He painted a complex picture of varied progress towards goals of reducing poverty and increasing educational opportunities, highlighting successes as well as failures.
Mr Court described how work towards achieving the MDGs is improving children's lives and prospects. The world has recently seen many positive changes: extreme poverty levels have fallen and primary education has been made available to 88 per cent of the world's children.
Commenting on the progress seen so far, Mr Court said that incidents of disease had been reduced by 32 per cent and child mortality was gradually reducing. However, much more effort needs to be made in order to achieve the goals by the set date of 2015.
Looking to the future, Mr Court raised questions as to where the world should focus its efforts in order to achieve the MDGs. For example, which should be top priority: the world target for the 14 countries accounting for 60 per cent of the world's population, or education and healthcare for women and girls?
Mr Court has 30 years of experience in humanitarian work and is currently involved in guiding UNICEF's efforts to achieve the Millennium Development Goals. “It was an enormous privilege to welcome Alan to Cambridge. The breadth of his knowledge and experience are inspirational.” said Ian Steed, Manager of the Humanitarian Centre.
The lecture was part of Cambridge “One World Week” which is an annual opportunity for people from diverse backgrounds to come together to learn about global issues. It was hosted by Lord Wilson of Dinton, Master of Emmanuel College and was organised by the Humanitarian Centre.
The Humanitarian Centre was established a year ago to support local initiatives engaged in international relief and development. It receives support from the University in order to achieve its mission.
The talk is available to stream or download; please access the link on the top right corner to hear it.
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