Dear Friends of Millennium Promise,
This has been a terrific week for Millennium Promise, for the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), and – most importantly – for the hopes of communities and families living in extreme poverty around the world. On Wednesday President Barack Obama gave his first address to the United Nations General Assembly. In conveying his administration's vision leading up to the major MDG-focused international summit scheduled for September 2010 in Canada, the President eloquently described the challenged current state of our global community:
"Far too many people in far too many places live through the daily crises that challenge our common humanity – the despair of an empty stomach; the thirst brought on by dwindling water; the injustice of a child dying from a treatable disease, or a mother losing her life as she gives birth."
Against that backdrop, President Obama made clear that the United States "will support the Millennium Development Goals, and approach next year's Summit with a global plan to make them a reality." And looking beyond the MDG deadline for 2015, the President asserted that, "We will set our sights on the eradication of extreme poverty in our time."
As the first United States-based international organization established with the explicit mission of supporting the achievement of the MDGs and the end of extreme poverty, Millennium Promise is very encouraged that President Obama has reasserted the United States' commitment to advancing this compelling and practical agenda. Indeed more than 250 people from all around the world came together in New York earlier this week to participate in the Second Annual Millennium Promise Partners' Meeting, sharing updates on progress and mapping out action plans to advance the work of the Millennium Villages and achieve the Millennium Development Goals by 2015.
The Millennium Promise meeting convened leaders from government, business, science, philanthropy, non-governmental organizations and the United Nations to share stories of innovation, inspiration and – most importantly – action. Some of the most memorable remarks were from President Bingu wa Mutharika of Malawi, who has led a transformation of his country's food–producing economy over the past four years. He stressed the success of the Millennium Villages and urged every country to include Millennium Villages in its national development agenda. More broadly, he asserted that:
"The Millennium Promise partnership can evolve into a platform onto which we can achieve international solidarity to meet the challenge of global financial crisis, food shortages, poverty and under-development. We must all believe that the world is one and that the problems are always lighter when they are shared."
In addition to the inspiring success stories from across the Millennium Villages project, we were very proud to launch major new partnerships this past Monday. One is with UNAIDS, focused on establishing the Millennium Villages as areas free of mother-to-child transmission of HIV. A second is with the Tommy Hilfiger Corporate Foundation, which is supporting a Millennium Village in Ruhiira, Uganda. A third is with Lenovo, which is contributing computer network technology around the Millennium Villages project. A fourth is with SapientNitro, which supports Millennium Promise through its world-leading creative marketing expertise. These partnerships are described in more detail on our website www.millenniumpromise.org, where we will be adding many more updates from the Partners' Meeting over the coming week. Please do take a look and keep watching as more is posted!
The world now faces a six-year countdown to the Millennium Development Goal deadline of 2015. Coalitions spanning communities, businesses, governments and other key sectors are bringing together leadership groups that build on recent successes to ensure momentum builds where it is needed most. Millennium Promise is invigorated to do much more than just watch the clock. Guided by a spirit of impatient optimism, we are proud to collaborate with a global network of partners that are advancing path-breaking forms of action-focused partnership. Together we can ensure that the world's poorest communities still have the opportunity to achieve the Goals, and that no effort is spared in partnering with them.
Thank you for your contributions to this partnership movement. We look forward to building on our successes together over the weeks and months ahead.
John W. McArthur