Special Report LAST UPDATE February 6, 2010
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January 20, 2010 African Youth Forum and the MDGs Dance Project: A better world in five years
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The world has five years to achieve the Millennium Development Goals.
Eight ways to change the world: Sounds simple enough to achieve, but countries around the planet are not keeping their promises to form international partnerships and fight global inequality. The leaders of 189 countries attending the United Nations Millennium Summit in 2000 established the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), setting a 15-year deadline to narrow the economic divide between the rich and poor, and guarantee basic human rights to food, education and well-being.

The goals, says Peace Boat’s MDGs campaign coordinator Takayama Yoko, are an issue of human security and dignity. “They cut across many different issues,” she says, “A sustainable society and peaceful future cannot be achieved without tackling all of these issues and without realizing they’re all very deeply intertwined.”

Peace Boat, Yoko adds, is trying to develop a “human-to-human connection” through its travels around the world and activities in ports of call, in hopes of broadening awareness of the MDGs and creating a push in civil society to achieve them by the deadline.
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(R to L) Mwaura Kaara,Takayama Yoko, Emmanuel Edudzie and Ruth Kangela
At an onboard press conference in Mombasa, Ms Takayama introduced two projects Peace Boat staff and participants are carrying out during the 68th Global Voyage: The African Youth MDGs Forum and the MDGs Dance Project.

The African Youth Forum, running Jan. 19-28, is a cooperative effort between Peace Boat and the United Nations Millennium Campaign (UNMC), and the second such forum to be held.
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Peace Boat is collecting signatures and messages in support of the MDGs onboard and during exchange programmes in ports.
Eight participants from NGOs and youth organizations in countries such as Uganda, Tanzania, South Africa and Malawi boarded the ship in Mombasa to discuss youth-related issues such as training, capacity building and the concept of “decent work.”

“People need not just employment, but they need employment that offers better remuneration packages and better social protection mechanisms,” says UNMC representative Mwaura Kaara, who joined the forum as a facilitator.
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Dance team participants are studying about poverty and development while promoting the eight MDGs.
The participants will go back to their countries, after the ship arrives in Cape Town, with an action agenda to present to their national governments: Peace Boat will also deliver the document to the government of Japan.

Japan’s position as one of the world's largest economies, says Yoko, means that Japan has the responsibility to contribute a higher quality and quantity of official development assistance (ODA).

Until now, many donor countries have been falling short on their promised support: By 2008, in Africa alone, governments were US$20 billion short of what they had promised in aid three years prior.

The UNMC, in its 2009 annual report on the MDGs, says the current financial crisis is a major obstacle in achieving the goals in the next five years.

“Progress towards the goals,” the report says, “is now threatened by sluggish — or even negative — economic growth, diminished resources, fewer trade opportunities for the developing countries, and possible reductions in aid flows from donor nations.”
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The team debuted their new routines to Peace Boat participants onboard the day before arriving in Mombasa.
Young people and those working on a local level, says one forum participant, will make the biggest push to reach the goals.

“One of the key outcomes,” says Emmanuel Edudzie of Youth Empowerment Synergies (YES) Ghana, “will be this regional framework which will reflect what youth are doing in their various regions.” By uniting young people to demand governments work harder to achieve the MDGs, Mr Edudzie believes it’s possible to make more progress in the next five years than has been made in the last decade.
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The African Youfh Forum’s nine participants aim to highlight youth perspectives on how to end poverty in African countries.
Peace Boat created its MDGs Dance Project – under the direction of staff member Kim Heechon – to encourage discussion of the goals, not just among youth in countries visited around the world, but also between the young Japanese participants onboard. “Through learning this dance, (the participants) are eager to learn more about the MDGs,” Ms Kim says, “Many didn’t know anything about the MDGs at the start.” Dancers, when not practicing, are taking part in study sessions about the goals and how the campaign is progressing.

The United Nations Millennium Development Goals:

1. Eradicate extreme hunger and poverty: Halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people whose income is less than $1 a day; Halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people who suffer from hunger.

2. Universal education: Ensure that, by 2015, children everywhere, boys and girls alike, will be able to complete a full course of primary schooling.

3. Gender equality: Eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education, preferably by 2005, and in all levels of education no later than 2015.

4. Child health: Reduce by two thirds, between 1990 and 2015, the under-five mortality rate.

5. Maternal health: Reduce by three quarters, between 1990 and 2015, the maternal mortality ratio; Achieve, by 2015, universal access to reproductive health.

6. Combat HIV/AIDS: Have halted by 2015 and begun to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS; Achieve, by 2015, universal access to reproductive health; Achieve, by 2010, universal access to treatment for HIV/AIDS for all those who need it; Have halted by 2015 and begun to reverse the incidence of malaria and other major diseases

7. Environmental sustainability: Integrate the principles of sustainable development into country policies and programmes and reverse the loss of environmental resources; Reduce biodiversity loss, achieving, by 2010, a significant reduction in the rate of loss; Halve, by 2015, the proportion of the population without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation; By 2020, to have achieved a significant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers.

8. Global partnership: Address the special needs of the least developed countries, landlocked countries and small island developing states; Develop further an open, rule-based, predictable, non-discriminatory trading and financial system; Deal comprehensively with developing countries’ debt; In cooperation with the private sector, make available the benefits of new technologies, especially information and communications;