Int'l conference on MDGs opens in Beijing

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Thursday, March 25, 2004

Int'l conference on MDGs opens in Beijing

A three-day international conference on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), set by a UNmeeting of heads of state in 2000, opened in Beijing Thursday morning.

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A three-day international conference on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), set by a UNmeeting of heads of state in 2000, opened in Beijing Thursday morning.

Chinese State Councilor Tang Jiaxuan addressed the meeting and Rubens Ricupero, special envoy of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and secretary-general of the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), read a letter from Annan.

Kim Hak-Su, UN under-secretary general, executive secretary of the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP), and several other senior officials of the UN organs attended the conference and are expected to deliver keynote speeches.

The main topics of the meeting are poverty, development and equality, health, AIDS, environmental sustainability, and regionaland global cooperation.

The conference is jointly held by the Chinese Foreign Ministry and offices of UN organizations in China.

Participants will include representatives from the Chinese and foreign governments, international organizations, academic organizations and business communities from home and overseas.

Backgrounder: Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)

The Millennium Development Goals grew out of a gathering of 189 world leaders at the United Nations in September 2000, when attendees proclaimed the Millennium Declaration.

This statement gave voice to the values shared by all member nations and resulted in a commitment by those nations to halve global poverty by 2015.

The eight MDGs are: eradicate extreme poverty and hunger, achieve universal primary education, promote gender equality and empower women, reduce child mortality, improve maternal health, combat HIV/ AIDS, malaria and other diseases, ensure environmental sustainability, and develop a global partnership for development.

According to the Human Development Report 2003, the first goal,to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger, is likely to be reached due to sustained economic growth in the two most populous countries, China and India.

However, according to the report, there are still difficulties to be overcome in reaching the goals comprehensively, such as thatthe daily income of one billion people is less than one dollar, about one fifth of the children in the world cannot receive elementary education, the population of AIDS orphans has reached 1.4 million, which is predicted to be doubled by 2010, and every minute about one woman dies while pregnant or giving birth.

Source: Xinhua

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