In January 2000, the leaders of 189 countries agreed on a new vision for the future – one with less poverty, hunger and disease, greater survival and improved health for mothers and infants, children with primary education, equality for women, and a better environment.
It is a vision of a world in which developed and developing countries work in partnership for global development. The Millennium Development Goals provide a framework for this vision, with targets by which to measure progress. They MDGs are:
Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
Achieve universal primary education
Promote gender equality and empower women
Reduce child mortality
Improve maternal health
Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases
Ensure environmental sustainability
Develop a global partnership for development
IPS considers information and communication to be essential elements of development and development cooperation. Realising "the right to be heard" is a concrete way to empower the poor and to promote accountability. Creating spaces for dialogue, and directly involving policy and decision–makers, are further ways to increase the value of development communication interventions.
IPS has been covering the core issues tackled by the MDGs since long before the goals were formulated at the Millennium Summit in September 2000. The MDGs form the core of the IPS news and content provision activities. In addition, IPS sees the provision of training programmes and tools to journalists as a way to enhance the coverage of the MDGs both within and outside of the IPS news agency –– particularly in the South where the IPS network is strongest and need the greatest. Having identified parliamentarians and city authorities as two key audiences of reporting on MDGs, IPS has created special resources for these groups.
The excellence of IPS reporting on the MDGs has been recognized in Five Views on Development: How News Agencies Cover the UN Millennium Development Goals , a detailed report produced by Prof. C. Anthony Giffard and Nancy Van Leuven of the University of Washington at Seattle (download .pdf ).
Mid–Way to 2015
Reporting on the MDGs received a new impetus in 2007 – the halfway point between the 2000 U.N. Summit that established the MDGs and the 2015 deadline for meeting them. Therefore IPS undertook the following initiatives:
refreshing our thematic news sites to reflect the urgency of Mid-Way to 2015 (in English, Spanish, Portuguese, French , Dutch and for Africa )
giving the Latin America Award for reporting on the MDGs; the Award was a highlight of the 2006–2007 programme of work on communicating the MDGs in the region, involving training journalists, radio podcasts, print journalism, newsletters and publications (see box)
international reporting teams and publications at three of the major conferences that marked the mid-term:
CONGO / Millennium Campaign, Civil Society Forum, Geneva
Rome Local Authorities meeting with UCLG and City of Rome
SID 50th anniversary – the Mighty 8 NCDO partner publication
marking with a news site and newsletters the STAND UP SPEAK OUT campaign, which inspired 43.7 million people in 127 countries to stand up against poverty, breaking a Guinness World Record; and partnering with the International Network of Street Newspapers to contribute IPS reporting to street newspapers.
