Edmund Rice Justice Bulletin

In 2000, world leaders promised to halve extreme poverty by 2015 with a global plan called the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Thanks to millions of people taking action and a massive global effort, real progress has been made. The number of people living in poverty has fallen to less than half of its 1990 level. Over two billion people gained access to better drinking water. The share of slum dwellers living in cities fell, improving the lives of at least 100 million people!

Yet, 1.4 billion people still live in extreme poverty. Every 4 seconds a child dies from preventable causes and over 900 million, particularly women and young people, suffer from chronic hunger. Meanwhile our population is set to rise to 9.5 billion by 2050 and the food system is at breaking point.

Climate change threatens to destroy the lives of millions more and undo all the progress we have made so far. Inequality is growing everywhere and human rights are being undermined in the worlds most fragile and conflict affected countries while the world economy continues to falter.

Despite all of this, for the first time in history we do have the resources to end poverty and grow our world sustainably. All have a role to play in making this happen by ensuring our Governments listen and take action on the things that matter most to people everywhere!

The debate on what should follow the Millennium Development Goals when they expire in 2015 is thoroughly underway.  There is a new meeting, report or conference on the subject somewhere in the world almost every day.  Keep track of what the key players are thinking, writing and saying at post2015.org.

Beyond 2015 is one example of a global civil society campaign, pushing for a strong and legitimate successor framework to the Millennium Development Goals.

The World We Want aims to gather the priorities of people from every corner of the world and help build a collective vision that will be used directly by the United Nations and World Leaders to plan a new development agenda launching in 2015, one that is based on the aspirations of all citizens!

You can also take part in the MY World online poll asking people everywhere about the issues that make the most difference to their lives.