Original text - English - Millennium Development Goals

Millennium Development Goals
Since the signing on to the Millennium Development Goals, South Africa has pledged to accomplish the targets by the year 2014. The policy environment of the country incorporates the MDGs tacitly while the over‐arching constitution has greater coverage for human dignity in the context of South Africa. However, the constitution has no timeframe for the realisation of these targets. The MDGs mitigate or break the Constitutional silence on timeframe and facilitates a national review of policy effectiveness and introduce reforms to achieve the goals.

Publications were made on the level of achievement of the MDGs in Burkina Faso as part of the monitoring towards the UN review in September. A weekly private news paper ‘’L’OPINION” and the national news paper “SIDWAYA” meaning the “truth is there” have published the document, which will continue as part of an ongoing accountability and MDG monitoring process.

On September 17th 2010, GCAP Uganda organized a High Level Pre-MDG Summit Colloquium that brought together different stakeholders within the framework of the Global Call to Action against Poverty to demand that governments recommit themselves to the promises they made on the MDGs in 2000. The meeting was organised to precede the special UN Summit on MDGs in New York where Uganda was to be represented. The objective of the Colloquium was to provide a platform for stakeholders to reflect on Uganda’s progress to achieve the MDGs, the challenges/obstacles, opportunities; and more importantly what must be done to meet and exceed the goals particularly in the next five years.

At the start of the month of March 2010, GCAP Kenya in collaboration with the African Monitor conducted a series of poverty hearings in Kenya. These political events include the UN MDG summit as well as the AU leaders’ summits; the hearings would give the grassroots people an opportunity to speak out and in turn enrich the advocacy work of the campaigners during the build up campaign work to the events.

The hearings focused specifically on employment and were held in the areas of Isabinia, Kitengela and Mwiki. At the hearings, testimonies from the masses dispelled the political statistics given by the government. The testimonies really tied peoples’ voices and faces to the progress given on development by the government and showed the contrast between the statistics and the reality on ground. During the hearings, people urged government to positively respond to their situation through creation of realistic loan schemes that will enhance employment creation and eventually improve on their lives.