News from Berlin
The Addis Ababa Summit on Cross Continental Cooperation
January 31st, 2014
The Addis Ababa Summit on Cross Continental Cooperation
“The Future of the Millennium Development Goals in the African Union”
(Ethiopia, Addis Ababa; January 27th – 31st, 2014 – Held Parallel to the African Union Summit)
Congress Overview
Two years away from the deadline set by the United Nations Millennium Declaration, the ICD´s Conference on the Future of the Millennium Development Goals in the African Union aims to review the progress already made across Africa in regards to meeting the Millennium Development Goals and to explore the potential the continent has for further development, so that the targets set by world leaders at the Millennium Summit in 2000 might be reached. With the deadline for these targets approaching rapidly and significant progress remaining to be made, it is essential to create a new agenda for Africa, focused on reinvigorating the existing initiatives in place to tackle the eight MDGs and propel Africa into a better economic, political and social climate.
The Millennium Development Goals
The Millennium Development Goals are eight objectives for increased international development reached unanimously by leaders of all 189 United Nations member states and affiliations, which are to be met by 2015. The MDGs target all developing countries across the world but, in 2012, 15 of the 20 countries which had made the greatest progress on the MDGs were from Africa. Many of the African nations, including Benin, Egypt, Ethiopia, Gambia, Malawi and Rwanda are continuing to make significant advances towards a number of goals and targets established within the MDGs and taking this into account, the ICD recognizes that cooperation between African nations is of the utmost importance to ensure that individual states continue to make substantial progress within a solid successor framework in order to maintain inclusive economic growth, political stability and human development.
Over the past decade, Africa has made impressive steps forward in the fight against poverty, malnutrition, conflict resolution and equality and in continuing to make significant developments within the frames of the Millennium Development Goals, the optimism for Africa’s role in the global economic landscape has increased dramatically. To maintain this optimism, The ICD believes in the necessity of establishing a participatory process for the next formulation of the agenda, supported by a more diverse range of actors to ensure a more democratic framework and therefore even more successful outcomes.