Millennium Development Goals
UN Women is one of United Nations agencies charged with supporting countries achieve the Millennium Development Goals. The eight goals adopted by the international community in 2000 set the following targets to be achieved by 2015:
- Eradicating Poverty
- Achieving Universal Primary Education
- Promoting Gender Equality And Empowering Women
- Reducing Child Mortality
- Improving Maternal Health
- Combating HIV&AIDS and Other Diseases
- Ensuring Environmental Sustainability
- Providing Financing For Development.
All eight MDGs include essential aspects of women’s well-being. Women’s empowerment and gender equality is critical for achieving each of the goals.
The MDGs have become a central element of many national planning systems. With clear time-bound targets, the MDGs provide the core elements of a tracking system, with indicators against which progress can be measured and monitored around the world. UN Women in the Pacific works alongside UNDP and other UN agencies working in the region to establish the framework within which the UN System will engage with governments and development partners to support national development priorities and the MDGs.
Two MDG scoping missions were carried out in Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands to carry out needs assessments and costing of national priorities in line with the MDGs. The scoping missions aimed to promote awareness and support among stakeholders and development partners of the role of MDG indicators and specifically focused on how the government can:
- Link MDG indicators to policy, planning and budgeting
- Determine the priority areas or sectors which will be part of the needs assessment and costing exercise
- Assess the state of data readiness
- Establish the institutional framework and set timelines for the implementation of MDG indicators.
During MDG scoping missions in Vanuatu and Solomon Islands, UN Women in the Pacific advocated for the full participation of national women’s machineries within the MDG Indicators process. As a result, the National Women’s Machinery in Vanuatu is providing key guidance to mainstream gender into the process and to develop specific gender equality initiatives to achieve the MDGs through all the MDG Thematic Task Force Groups. These groups have been tasked with conducting a needs assessment within all sectors to identify relevant interventions.
