Monthly Editorial - UNRIC Director

April - MDG Momentum: 1000 Days of Action

In September 2000, to mark the New Millennium, all heads of states and governments met at the UN General Assembly in New York and adopted a declaration setting eight goals for humanity, known as the MDGs. The powerful slogan 'We Can End Poverty', although very inspirational, seemed more an aspiration than an achievable goal. Not so, we are happy to report. Looking back on what has, and has not, been achieved, the picture is much brighter than the sceptics had predicted in 2000.

On 5 April, we reached the 1000 days mark to the MDG target date and much has indeed been done to eradicate absolute poverty. The MDGs are the most successful global anti-poverty push in history. Governments, international organizations and civil society groups around the world have helped to cut in half the world's extreme poverty rate as well as the number of people without access to safe drinking water. More girls are in school. Fewer children are dying. The world continues to fight killer diseases, such as malaria, tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS. #MDGmomentum

It would seem therefore that We Can indeed End Poverty if we all set our minds to it. It seems that the private sector has also come a very long way since the year 2000 and no longer considers the achievement of development objectives as 'charity' but rather as a real investment in the future. So if I were to guess, I'd say in that the next 1000 days we will witness a big leap towards the eighth goal which is 'developing a global partnership for development.'

But 2015 is certainly not the end. We are already in post-2015 mode. The UN has created a global conversation asking citizens to think about post-2015 and to say which goals are most important to them. Join the conversation, tell us what you think on www.myworld2015.org.

March - The month of all causes

In order to concentrate minds and organize our work with partners in Europe and beyond, we have selected a few international days to celebrate, or mark for those that don't call for celebration.

The month of March is a particularly charged month with 13 international days!

Not that we have any problem with an overload of international days, on the contrary, each issue needs to have its day and some issues are more important than others to different peoples.

In March we at UNRIC are putting particular emphasis on three international days - International Women's Day, on 8 March, the theme of which for 2013 is Violence Against Women; World Water Day (22 March) and one I am particularly looking forward to celebrating is a new international day on 20 March which is the International Day of Happiness. This delightful idea was presented by Bhutan and will be celebrated every year from now on. We look forward to your ideas and thoughts on how best to mark the day.

As a reminder we have amazing ads by European creatives, on both Violence Against Women and Water, that you are most welcome to use -
www.unric.org/slideshow/2011/ | www.unric.org/slideshow/2012/.

And finally on 27 February we celebrated the life of Stephane Hessel, a great humanist and a true and relentless friend of the UN.

February - A word from our Director

Here at UNRIC we are doing some soul searching.

Our website is in thirteen languages and we want to make sure that we give you what you want to read and watch. For that we would very much welcome your comments. What would you like to read and see more of? Or less of? Do you watch our 3 Questions in 3 Minutes videos? Are there subjects that you would like our website to cover? Do you follow our social media?

You get the picture. Send us your comments and we will do our best to make UNRIC a one-stop-shop for all your needs.