It's all about children
THE MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS
SET PRIORITIES FOR CHILDREN
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© UNICEF/NYHQ2009-0231/Estey |
The Millennium Development Goals are our blueprint for building a better world for children in the 21st Century. Though the MDGs are for all humankind, they are primarily about children.
Because six of the 8 goals relate directly to children.
While the first six goals are immediately related to children - food, education, gender equality, child survival, maternal mortality and HIV, meeting the last two on environment and partnerships will also make critical improvements in their lives.
Because meeting the Goals is most critical for children.
Children are most vulnerable when people lack essentials like food, water, sanitation and health care. They are the first to die when basic needs are not met.
Because children have rights.
Each child is born with the right to survival, food and nutrition, health and shelter, an education, and to participation, equality and protection – rights agreed to, among others, in the 1989 international human rights treaty the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The Convention is almost universally ratified. The MDGs must be met for these basic human rights to be realised.
Because reducing poverty starts with children.
Helping children reach their full potential is also investing in the very progress of humanity. For it is in the crucial first years that interventions make the biggest difference in a child’s physical, intellectual and emotional development. And investing in children means achieving development goals faster, as children constitute a large percentage of the world’s poor.
