Challenges to Achieving the Millennium Development Goals and What the US Government (and You) Can Do
Featuring: Anita Sharma, North American coordinator for the United Nations Millennium Campaign
Wednesday August 12, 2009 | 7 to 8:30 pm
University Temple United Methodist Church, Seattle
More than halfway to the 2015 deadline to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), major advances in the fight against poverty and hunger have begun to slow or even reverse as a result of the global economic and food crises and threats from climate change. The Millennium Development Goals Report 2009, a new assessment by the United Nations, warns that despite many successes overall progress has been too slow for most of the targets to be met by 2015. The report issues a strong call to action for rich and poor governments alike to reaffirm commitments to help the global effort to end extreme poverty and hunger, empower women, improve health care, education and the environment by 2015.
This event, co-sponsored by the Puget Sound Millennium Goals Project and the United Nations Association Seattle Metropolitan Chapter, provided an opportunity to discuss progress on the MDGs and the role the United States is playing to achieve the goals, and what active citizens can do to get more engaged in support of the goals.
Anita Sharma
Anita Sharma’s career has spanned a range of development, humanitarian response and conflict prevention positions in Washington, DC and around the world. She was the executive director of ENOUGH, an initiative of the Center for American Progress and the International Crisis Group to abolish genocide and mass atrocities. She served as governance advisor in Indonesia with the Office of the United Nations Recovery Coordinator and has held international posts in Indonesia, Iraq, Jordan, and Kosovo with the International Organization for Migration (IOM), the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), and the Council of Europe. In the United States, she directed the Conflict Prevention Project at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and has also worked as the research director for the Role of American Military Power Project and the Carnegie Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict. She is a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and holds a bachelor's degree with honors from Syracuse University and a master's degree from the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University.
Information about the United Nations Millennium Campaign: www.endpoverty2015.org