subject: Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) Relating to the Environmental Management [print this page] INTRODUCTION INTRODUCTION
The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)are eight international development goals that all 192 United Nations member states and at least 23 international organizations have agreed to achieve by the year 2015, during the millennium summit in 2001. During the summit it was noted that more than a billion people in the world still in acute poverty and suffer grossly due to inadequate resources and insufficient services such as education and health. The MDGs aim to spur development by improving social and economic conditions in the world poorest countries.
The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) established a unifying set of developmental objectives for the global community. Bringing together United Nations agencies, governments and civil society around eight key development issues, the MDGs foster collaborative action to reduce poverty, improve health and address educational and environmental concerns around the world's most pressing development problems. The MDGs are specifically designed to address the needs of the world's poorest citizens and the world's most marginalized populations.
Environmental management is the field of study which includes the protection, conservation and sustainable use of various elements or components of the environment. Environment includes physical factors of surroundings of human beings including air, land, water, climate sound light, odor taste, micro organisms, biological factors of animals and plants, cultural resources and the socio-economic factors of aesthetics and include both the natural and built environment and the way the interact.
The following are the 8 millennium development goals together with their relevance in the field of environmental management.
Goal 1: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
This has two targets to be achieved by the year 2015
Target 1: Reduce by half the proportion of people living on less than a dollar a day;
Target 2: Reduce by half the proportion of people who suffer from hunger;
Poverty is a situation where income levels are too low to meet the basic necessities for survival; here people live below USD 1. Hunger is where there is insufficient supply of food people, lack enough food to eat. Before the establishment of MDGs poverty levels was very high among the people as a result people destroyed the environment in order to earn money to sustain themselves, they engaged in environmentally unfriendly activities such as deforestation so as to obtain fuel woods, building materials, expanding agricultural land and grazing areas, burning charcoal and others, which together destroyed the environment.
The benefits we obtain from ecosystem goods and services underpin the basis for our livelihoods, health and security. Poor people have limited financial resources and are therefore extremely dependent on the environment for their basic needs such as water, food, and shelter. Environmental degradation diminishes the capacity of poor people to make decisions that contribute to their well-being. When environmental resources are not managed in a sustainable manner, their degradation therefore negatively influences the welfare of poor people. Conversely, promoting the sustainable use of resources on which poor people rely - such as forests, water, and soil - will contribute to the eradication of extreme poverty and hunger.
After MDGs countries where ordered to alleviate poverty among their people, this is because poverty contributes a lot to environmental degradation. Several measures where put in place to combat poverty at the same time preserving the environment for present and future use; the establishment of agro forestry, re-afforestation and afforestation programs soil conservation measures, electrification of rural development and creating more employment opportunities, women empowerment, fair trade for agricultural products, rural industrialization, opening money lending institutions such as co-operatives to improve small businesses and education among people to fight ignorance, these together lead to the improvement of living standards of the people at the same time managing our environment example agro forestry a farmer may obtain income through selling timbers, food from crops and animal products at the same time trees control soil erosion, animals improve the soil fertility from their droppings.
At international level a UN agency named UNEP (United nation Environmental Program) is concerned with environmental issues and poverty among nations. UNEP works in close collaboration with UNDP (United nation Development program) on poverty and environment issues. UNDP and UNEP have formally launched a joint Global Partnership on Poverty and the Environment. Through this partnership, UNDP and UNEP will work together with countries around the world to ensure that good environmental management leads to improved livelihoods for poor people. UNDP and UNEP will, furthermore, monitor programs established to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, and will ensure that investment through those programs is carried out in an environmentally-friendly manner
The Poverty and Environment Unit of UNEP is currently supporting seven African countries in implementing a four-year project that aims to increase developing countries' capacity to mainstream environment into poverty reduction policies and other national development strategies. This will ensure that efforts to reduce poverty are not undermined by the unsustainable use of resources. The explicit linking of poverty and environment contributes to the realization of the MDGs, particularly MDG1. Money institutions like IMF (International monetary Fund) and World Bank are now sponsoring developmental projects in various nations aiming at raising the living standard of the people. In Tanzania, the president Hon. Jakaya Kikwete provided 1 billion per each 26 regions of the country to support these development projects of the poor people hence raising the living standards.
Eradication of extreme poverty and hunger helps a lot to preserve and conserve out nature.
Goal 2: Achieve Universal Primary Education (UPE)
Target 3: To ensure that by 2015 that children everywhere will complete a full course of primary schooling
Before the establishment of MDGs many children (113 million) worldwide did not attend school. This problem was most acute in Sub-Saharan Africa, and a higher proportion of girls than boys were not going to school. This was due to various reasons like poverty, cultural believes and norms, physical barriers, there were no enough primary schools buildings, teaching materials and teachers. This made them to lack knowledge and skills on how to relate with their surrounding, as a result they engage in environmentally unfriendly activities like deforestation, poor farming methods bush burning and hunting, these activities resulted in to scarcity of the resources especially where the environment was under stress, thus children especially girls spend a lot of time gathering fire wood and collecting water. In urban areas ignorance contributed to unsanitary conditions such as poor management of solid and liquid waste.
After the establishment of MDGs, countries are targeting to ensure that by 2015 children everywhere should complete a full course of primary education, a lot of efforts are being done to ensure the provision of FREE primary education, more schools have and are being built, more teaching materials like books, drawing boards chalks and others are being supplied, more primary education teachers have being employed and more training colleges for teachers have been established. This primary education has helped students to be environmentally knowledgeable hence taking a good care of the environment among their societies where they can introduce environmental programs like soil conservation, afforestation, water management practices and others. Education also makes students to be more creative and innovative hence can create self employment jobs instead of relaying on environment.
Goal 3: Promote Gender Equality and Empower women.
Target 4: Eliminate gender disparities in primary and secondary education, preferably by 2005, and all levels of education no later than 2015
Before the establishment of MDGs, women were being undermined at all stages that is to say local, regional, national and international levels in terms of making decisions and owning properties. For example they were not allowed to inherit properties like land, were they would practice activities like afforestation which would reduce land degradation by protecting the soil, they were not allowed to go to school. Most employment opportunities in societies were given to men, this increased women poverty, also early marriages and polygamy caused women to produce many children, which resulted into high demand for food paving way to environmentally unfriendly activities like over cultivation, bush burning, deforestation which poisoned our environment. In earlier societies males were more preferred than females. This made females to be poor hence continued interacting with the natural environment in the long way.
After the MDGs the governments of various countries have elevated the position of women at all levels by encouraging female child education and also giving them financial support from primary to higher education level. This has put women on a fore front in decision making from family; local to international level example nowadays women are now given special seats in parliaments like in Tanzania they want to make sure that 50% of MPs are women laws protecting rights of women have been established through the ministry of women affairs. This goal has also helped to reduce the dependency of women on their husbands as their now empowered in various fields. Promoting gender equality and empowering of women will help in managing our environment because in most cases women are the ones interacting directly with the environment. Like collecting firewood and fetching water. Also women have been instrumental in conserving the environment, for example Waangari Mathai of Kenya won a noble prize for her efforts in the planting of trees from which environmental deterioration can be kept minimal.
UNEP is working towards empowering women to play a more active role in conservation efforts and the sustainable management of natural resources. Our aim is to build capacities to amplify the voices of women calling for equal rights and responsibilities in environmental and sustainable development.
Goal 4: Reduce child mortality
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Target 5: Reduce under-five mortality rate by two thirds between 1990 and 2015
Before the establishment of MDGs, there was a high rate of child mortality resulting from a number of factors which are human factors for example lack of family planning as parents produced more children as an insurance against diseases that were causing death in children ,poor nutrition ,poor sanitation, poor housing, cultural beliefs, social economic factors such as inadequate health facilities like hospitals ,medicines ,medical personnel and poor infrastructures, environmental factors such as disease causing vectors, physical barriers and environmental pollution. All combined together led to the massive death of children aged bellow five years.
After the establishment of MDGs, many health facilities have been put in place to reduce on child mortality hence saving the lives of under fives. Many hospitals have and are being built in every place of the country, many doctors and other health personnel have been employed health centers , medicines are in plenty supply, immunization programes are now being provided to children example in Uganda children below five years are immunized two times against polio, provision of free mosquito nets to women having children below fives to protect them against malaria example in Tanzania and Kenya, nowadays there is provisions of vitamin A and C to children under five. Environmental health education is now being provided to the people like how to destroy the breeding places of vectors such as mosquitoes, good sanitation services like use of proper latrines, proper management of wastes and others of the same nature. Improvements in environmental factors play a lot in reducing child mortality in our countries.
Goal 5: Improve maternal health
Target 6: Reduce the maternity mortality ratio by three quarters between 1990 and 2015;
Before the establishment of MDGs there was high rate of maternal mortality caused by health factors, socio-economic factors, environmental factors and others, example inhaling polluted indoor air and carrying heavy loads of water and fuel wood hurt women's health and can make them less fit to bear children, with greater risks of complications during pregnancy. And lack of energy for illumination and refrigeration, as well as inadequate sanitation, undermine health care, especially in rural areas. Social cultural factors like polygamous marriages, early marriages, female genital mutilation, inheritance of widows and food forbiddance undermine the health of pregnant women causing complications during delivery adding to maternal mortality.
After the establishment of MDGs, countries are working hard through their health ministries to improve the maternal health; various initiatives have been put in place to save the lives of pregnant mothers. Nowadays many health centre have been built up to the village levels, many doctors and midwives are put in place to help the pregnant women, pregnant women are now attending clinics for antenatal and postnatal check ups of their health and that of unborn children. Infrastructures example roads have now been improved for easy accessibility to health centers. Environmental health education is now being provided to societies like provision of clean water, proper sanitation and pollution control measures to reduce related effects such as water borne diseases and respiratory infections like diarrhea, cholera, pneumonia, anemia and others, this is because when the environment is polluted pregnant women suffers a lot from diseases.
Goal 6: Combating HIV/AIDS Malaria and other diseases.
Target 7: Halt by 2015 and begin to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS;
Initially the death rate of people due to HIV, malaria and other diseases were very high due to socio economic factors and environmental factors like poverty, medical heath facilities, and lack of HIV/AIDS education, pollutions from industries, poor waste and sewage management.
Of late media programs publications and seminars all could help sensitize the masses about the danger of diseases and how they could be prevented.
This goal is targeted by 2015 HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases to be combated and reversed their spread. This can be achieved by reducing a prevalence of these diseases, through introduction of condoms, sex education, provision of mosquito nets, anti-malaria treatments, scrubbers and electrostatic precipitators, proper management of water resources, environmental health education, and educational programs about diseases and environment by the media (eco talk show) and religious programs. These diseases make people sick and weak thus all of their income will be invested on buying medicines and treatments. They also cause death of people thus leaving behind widows and orphans unattended, as a result victims engage into environmental unfriendly activities like deforestation for charcoal burning, fire wood so that they can earn income. These all combined together accelerate environmental degradation.
Goal 7: Ensure environmental sustainability
Target 9: Integrate the principles of sustainable development into country policies and programmes; reverse loss of environmental resources;
Target 10: Reduce by half the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water;
Target 11: Achieve significant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers by 2020;
The existence of an environmental MDG in itself is an explicit recognition by world leaders that environment is a crucial element of development. It is recognition of the fact that without environmental sustainability there will be no long-lasting development. MDG7 and the underlying targets also show commitment at the highest political level to ensuring environmental sustainability.
However, environment is of importance not only for MDG7 but also for the other MDGs. The President's Summary of the discussion of Ministers and Heads of Delegation at the 23rd Session of the Governing Council of UNEP concluded: "If they (the MDGs) are to be achieved in a sustainable manner, recognition that environmental sustainability underpins the achievement of all the goals must be at the heart of further efforts of the international community."
MDG7 is of direct relevance to most of the work that is being undertaken by UNEP under the organization's slogan Environment for Development'.
UNEP works in co-operation with like-minded partners. One example of this is the Poverty and Environment Partnership (PEP), an informal network of development agencies that seeks to improve the coordination of work on poverty reduction and the environment. Together, we have developed an initiative that seeks to reinvigorate political attention to the environmental challenges that are central to achieving the MDGs. This initiative includes the development of a number of analytical papers, the planning of a high-visibility event at the World Summit as well as the building of a strong coalition for MDG7 beyond the Summit
All in all human activities largely destroyed our environment, due to deforestation, bush burning over fishing, poor agricultural methods, over exploitation mineral resources, land reclamation, land fragmentation, over population, harnessing of energy and others, put our environment in grave side resulting into; air pollution, water pollution, soil erosion, extinction of species (rhino, tigers, lions certain types of fish, plants), loss of habitat for wild animals, land degradation, loss of ecological services (carbon cycle, nitrogen cycle, water cycle), global warming, ozone layer depletion, acid rain, desertification, diseases among others
Currently after the MDGs countries worldwide are working to adhere to principle of sustainable development which emphasizes proper use of environmental resources so that they can support present and future generations, developmental plans are now putting environmental considerations into actions. Environmental education and awareness is now being introduced as a course of study in various institution of higher learning from here the graduates will pass the acquired environmental knowledge to their societies on how to handle with care and conscious our godly given environment. Humans are now discouraged from over exploitation of environmental resources like forest, minerals, fisheries, wetland and among others. Developmental activities like industrial production are now required by laws to adhere to the principle of sustainable environment; they are advised to do what they can to minimize environmental pollution like air pollution from industrial emissions, water pollution by discharging industrial bi-products into water sources.
Nowadays, there is an international environmental day which is on 5th June, on that day environmental programs are being carried out like tree planting, soil conservation education, awareness on environmental issues like proper farming, proper liver stock keeping , these all help to preserve and conserve our environment.
Countries have strengthen the ministry of environment in each country which work together with other ministries like tourism, water, energy, and minerals, Agriculture, forest, fisheries to ensure that the environment is used in sustainable way so that it can support live on earth.
Also countries have formulated environmental councils to deal with environmental issues, for example in Uganda we have NEMA (National Environment Management Authority), Tanzania there is NEMC (National Environment Management Council), and These Councils have duty to ensure the environment is kept in a good health state.
At international level, countries have met in various locations to rescue our environment from the pollution caused by human activities example Montreal convention which looked on substances adding to green house effects which pollutes air, Vienna convention which investigated on substances depleting the ozone layer causing Ozone hole in Antarctica and the most recent Copenhagen summit in Denmark which talked on climatic changes and its causes, all these summit observe that human industrial activities and consumptions are contributing factors to climatic changes of our environment hence responsible members (developed countries) are required to reduce the emission and pay money to the suffers of environmental pollution (developing countries)
A lot of effort is needed from all of us to ensure proper utilization and management of the environmental resources so as to achieve sustainable environment. Like president USA Barrack Obama is much concern on solving the problem of Oil spills around the Gulf of Mexico.
Goal 8: Developing a Global Partnership for development
This goal has following targets
Target 12: Develop further an open, rule-based, predictable, non-discriminatory trading and financial system, Includes a commitment to good governance, development and poverty reduction - both nationally and internationally;
Target 13: Address the special needs of the least developed countries. Includes: tariff and quota-free access for least developed countries' exports; enhanced programme of debt relief for heavily indebted poor countries (HIPC) and cancellation of official bilateral debt; and more generous ODA for countries committed to poverty reduction;
Target 14: Address the special needs of landlocked developing countries and small islands developing States (through the Programme of Action for the Sustainable Development of Small Island Developing States and the outcome of the twenty-second special session of the General Assembly)
Target 15: Deal comprehensively with the debt problems of developing countries through national and international measures in order to make debt sustainable in the long term.
Target 16: In cooperation with developing countries, develop and implement strategies for decent and productive work for youth;
Target 17: In cooperation with pharmaceutical companies, provide access to affordable essential drugs in developing countries;
Target 18: In cooperation with the private sector, make available the benefits of new technologies, especially information and communications;
Before the establishment of MDGs there was low global partnership among nations this led to the increase in economic gap between the rich and poor countries, developing countries suffered a lot from problems like environmental pollution, diseases, debt crises, poor infrastructures, and poor technology for production low prices of their agricultural products. All these increased poverty among these nations which in turn affect the environment as people struggled a lot to earn income for their survival by engaging environmentally unfriendly activities example conversion of natural ecosystems into human managed agricultural and settlement lands.
The last goal - global partnership for development - is about the means to achieve the first seven MDGs.
Many global environmental problems climate change, loss of species diversity, and depletion of global fisheries - can be solved only through partnerships between rich and poor countries.
Human Development Report / 2003
Intergovernmental decisions have stronger and broader recognition and support by the public if Governments take views of the civil society and other stakeholders into account as early as possible in the policy-making decision process. UNEP places great importance on working closely with civil society and the major groups, trade unions, the private sector and the scientific sector in various capacities, to facilitate the process of improving their environmental performance and display greater responsibility towards society.
In addition, various divisions of UNEP collaborate with relevant partnerships to provide services that closely support MDG.
After the establishment of MDGs now countries worldwide are collaborating in solving socio-economic cultural political and environmental problems like former USA president Gorge W. Bush donated a lot billions to support the campaign against malaria in Tanzania. Developing countries are now receiving relief of their debts; free medicines are now donated to health centers in developing countries, humanitarian services are being provided to the affected nations like Haiti, Brazil, China, and Tanzania. In ensuring political stabilities so as maintain the world peace, countries are donating their solders to political unrest countries like Uganda and Burundi are donating their solders to maintain or restore peace in Somalia.
Regional integration like SADC (South African developing countries), EAF (East African Federation), AU (African Union), EU (European Union), NAM (National Alien Movement), and others have and they are doing a lot to boost sustainable development among their member states for example, East African Federation is now doing a lot on improving its people by providing them common market, ensuring good governance, environmental protection and conservation measures interchanging of experts and students, encouraging eco-business and eco-industrialization among its member states(Tanzania ,Kenya ,Uganda Rwanda and Burundi )
All these lead to the development of global partnership among nations, which ensure sustainable development is achieved by all nations by the year 2015, this will also result in environmental sustainability.
CHALLENGES OF MILLEMIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS IN BOTH DEVELOPED AND DEVELOPING COUNTRIES
The following are the challenges leading to the delay in achieving the millennium development goals by the year 2015,
Political conflicts that have disrupted trade and discouraging investors also have affected developmental activities in the fighting nations.
Persistence of environmental calamities like earth quakes in Haiti, landslides in Bududa-Uganda, drought in arid and semi arid parts of the worlds, tsunamis and floods destroy land fields, water resources leaving a great number of people susceptible to hunger and poverty which bring a large gap towards the achievement of MDGs
Social cultural norms that suppress the rights of women in their societies, and put them in an inferior position in society.
Poor government policies are discouraging the achievement of MDGs example the persistence of corruption in civil sectors denies a lot of developmental projects.
Overpopulation due to high birth rates among the people affects the provision of free primary education as the numbers of students are not in proportional with the available education facilities.
The wide span of poverty among people especially in the developing countries has driven people to carry out activities that are not environmentally friendly like deforestation in search of income.
The use of inappropriate technology put a barrier in achieving the MDGs like failure to eliminate diseases such as malaria; it also leads to increased environmental pollution.
CONCLUSION
Millennium development goals are very important in achieving a sustainable environment however, these goals have not yet been achieved especially in developing countries due to the challenges they are facing as explained above. A lot of efforts from both local and international stakeholders are needed towards the achievement of these goals. In so doing we shall achieve sustainable development at the same time a sustainable environment will be achieved as sustainable development emphasizes proper use of environmental resources so that they can continue to support the present and future generations to come. So let us all work together to achieve these goals and keep our godly given gift (environment) in a healthy state.
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Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) Relating to the Environmental Management
