Talk:Millennium Development Goals

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[edit] Discussion

Sad to see that anonymous contributors introduce "U.S. Leadership" for the MDGs (at ODA=0.17% of GDP compared to 0.46% from Europe), and remove the 0.7% goal, quoting John Bolton, without any comments from the Wiki community. Jj2006 09:22, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Expansion of IR Articles

It's quite sad how little there is on important political wiki articles. I've been using Wiki for at least a couple years now, but am just realizing this. I had to edit a bit of George W. Bush and [Foreign policy of the George W. Bush administration ] tonight, due to the lack of treaty criticisms.. As a result, I ended up putting a blurb in here as well. Seriously, International Relations majors at universities have always been pompous fools, but this is reinforcement of the fact. Please help expand these and any other articles. It's late at night and I don't have the energy, or else I'd break out books and be expanding a lot of entries. Soorej 03:55, 2 September 2006 (UTC)


There could be a little more info here on the overall purpose of the goals, where they come from, and also on their progress (or at least more specific links to sites evaluating progress, and on subsequent, relevant UN meetings).

mayve we could approve this article and link to it to do that

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_creation/2006-08-02#Eurizons_-_European_Tour_for_Global_Responsibility

and www.eurizons.net as an ecternal link.

markus petz (i am one of eth hitch hikers)

[edit] Improvement drive

A related topic, Grameen Bank, has been nominated on Wikipedia:This week's improvement drive. Contribute your expertise and vote for Grameen Bank on Wikipedia:This week's improvement drive!--Fenice 06:46, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Social Security Net

Why a global social safety net is not included in MDGs? Unknownworld 08:51, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] This will get deleted...

Good to see that 5 years into the "goals" plan we've accomplished absolutely NOTHING.

Hmm, why not research what has and hasn't been accomplished, in actuality, and update the article then? 74.244.106.187 (talk) 02:47, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] VOTE!! - HDI in Infobox#Countries|country infobox/template?

The Human Development Index (HDI) is a standard UN measure/rank of how developed a country is or is not. It is a composite index based on GDP per capita (PPP), literacy, life expectancy, and school enrollment. However, as it is a composite index/rank, some may challenge its usefulness or applicability as information.

Thus, the following question is put to a vote:

Should any, some, or all of the following be included in the Wikipedia Infobox#Countries|country infobox/template:

(1) Human Development Index (HDI) for applicable countries, with year;
(2) Rank of country’s HDI;
(3) Category of country’s HDI (high, medium, or low)?

YES / NO / UNDECIDED/ABSTAIN - vote here

Thanks!

E Pluribus Anthony 01:52, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

  • Why would this page be a logical place to vote for or against this? —Cleared as filed. 03:10, 20 September 2005 (UTC)
  • I've placed this notice to vote on any pages where human development issues/HDI may be relevant (usually, but not exclusively, where links are present); since a Millennium Development Goal is to increase human development worldwide, it seems appropriate. As well: the actual vote page is elsewhere...on this page. E Pluribus Anthony 03:41, 20 September 2005 (UTC)


[edit] Number of UN nations to sign?

It says that all 191 UN member states agreed in the article but according to this (page 28) source it was 189 nations. Im not sure where the 191 figure is from. Tim166 13:44, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

In any case the UN has 192 member states, with the adhesion of Montenegro in 2006 UN Ref.


All UN member states at the time (2000) the Millennium Declaration was signed agreed to it, thus the MDGs. Sinc then, 3 more nations have been admitted to the UN, and from what I know, two of them have alo agreed upon the Millennium Declaration. I'm not sure about Montenegro however. Besty 12:14, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] External links

I took some time to clean up the external links. Mainly I cut out articles that were about projects that address the goals rather than being sites that discuss the goals themselves. There are still quite a lot of links though and they cover a lot of the same ground. Ideally I think we'd have just four or five links to the best sites that deal critically (as in commentary, not negatively) with the goals and cover wide ground - giving readers a nicely focused section that doesn't waste their time. Here are my thoughts:

It's the UNs official site - it ought to stay

I think this is a pretty good section, it's all 18 months old or so, but I don't think it's too dated yet. It seems to provide a fairly balanced analysis. I think it should stay.

It's nicely presented, but doesn't really cover anything not already covered on several other sites that we will likely link to. I think it should be deleted

I like the presentation - and presumably the data gets updated from time to time. But it doesn't provide any analysis. I don't go one way or the other.

Official site and important information, but linked to directly from the un.org site above. I think this one should be deleted

(Actually redirects to http://ddp-ext.worldbank.org/ext/GMIS/home.do?siteId=2) A rich site on the MDG from the World bank's perspective. Given WB's importance this is probably an important link to keep.

Rich site with interesting commentary from a variety of leaders. I think this one should stay.

Just one essay, given the other sites I think this one should be deleted.

Repeats information already in other sites. Good presentation but annoying download only format. I think this one should be deleted.

Repeats information already covered, but presentation is good. In general I like the idea of having something that's accessible to youngsters who use wikipedia, but it does still clutter up the links with repeated information. I lean towards delete.

Quite short. Most information covered in other places. I think this one should be deleted.

I'd normally like to see a good video since variety in media can be a good thing. But given the quality of the other links, I think this is superfluous and should be deleted.

Other opinions? -- Siobhan Hansa 16:48, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

If the goal is to trim it down to a handful of really relevant "for further reading" sites, I would agree with your choices. However, I think that individual articles/commentaries that can't be converted into footnote/reference format and integrated into the article body text should be deleted. Wl219 18:14, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
My goal was to trim it down to useful further reading. Are you proposing we just nix all external links that aren't citations instead (with an attempt first to add content to the article using these links as sources)? -- Siobhan Hansa 19:12, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
Yes, for links leading to articles or essays like the OneWorld link, and for stuff that seems to be redundant like the Oxfam link. Wl219 19:19, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] 0.7%

I removed the .7% claim,

Some have criticised the fact that many OECD nations, including key members such as the United States, have not delivered their promise of giving 0.7% of their GNP towards poverty reduction by the target year of 2015. Some nations' contributions have fallen far short of 0.7%, [1]

as it seems to be disputed by John Bolton:

Bolton argues that the U.S. never agreed in Monterrey to spending 0.7% of GDP on development assistance. Indeed, Washington has consistently opposed setting specific foreign-aid targets since the U.N. General Assembly first endorsed the 0.7% goal in 1970. The Declaration states, "we encourage developed countries that haven't done so to make concrete progress to 0.7%.



The .7% target has been agreed upon many more times than at Monterrey (which the United States did agree upon, contrary to what John Bolton stated) and through the UN General Assembly resolution in 1970 (of whish, the US did agree). The target was also agreed upon at the World Summit on Sustainable Development, also held in 2002, again in 2005 at the UN World Summit, reaffirmed in the Millennium Declaration (to which the United States also signed).

perhaps we should put this criticism back on the page. After all, it is a statement of criticism from the public, and is a valid point, even if john Bolton disagrees with it. Besty 12:12, 25 August 2007 (UTC)