Universities and the Millennium Development Goals: Down from the Ivory Tower Education for Sustainab

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Universities and the Millennium Development
Goals Down from the Ivory TowerEducation for
Sustainable FuturePrague, September 10, 2003

• Bedrich Moldan
• Charles University Environment Center

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Millennium Development Goals

• 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

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Goal 1 Poverty and Hunger (1)

• Targets
• Halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of
  people whose income is less than 1 a day
• Halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of
  people who suffer from hunger

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Goal 1 Poverty and Hunger (2)
Source UNDP 2003
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Goal 1 Poverty and Hunger (3)
Source UNDP 2003
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Challenges for Universities I Poverty and Hunger

• Oriented research
• Definitions and causes of poverty
• Economic, social and environmental context
• Ways of combating hunger

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Goal 2 Education (1)

• Targets
• Ensure that, by 2015, children everywhere, boys
  and girls alike, will be able to complete a full
  course of primary schooling

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Goal 2 Education (2)
Source UNDP 2003
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Goal 2 Education (3)
Source UNDP 2003
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Challenges for Universities II Education

• Teacher education
• Innovative methods (formal, non-formal, informal
  education)
• New technologies (including ICTs)

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Goal 3 Gender Equality (1)

• Targets
• Eliminate gender disparity in primary and
  secondary education preferably by 2005 and in all
  levels of education no later than 2015

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Goal 3 Gender Equality (2)
Source UNDP 2003
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Challenges for Universities III Gender Equality

• Analysing and addressing root causes
• Gender studies
• Promoting women (science, university positions)

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Goal 4, 5, 6 Human Health (1)

• Targets
• Reduce by two-thirds, between 1990 and 2015, the
  under-five mortality ratio
• Reduce by three-quarters, between 1990 and 2015,
  the maternal mortality ratio
• Have halted by 2015 and begun to reverse the
  spread of HIV/AIDS
• Have halted by 2015 and begun to reverse the
  incidence of malaria and other major diseases

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Goal 4, 5, 6 Human Health (2)
Source UNDP 2003
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Goal 4, 5, 6 Human Health (3)
Source UNDP 2003
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Challenges for Universities IV Human Health

• Shifting research priorities
• Addressing emerging issues

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Goal 7 Environmental Sustainability (1)

• Targets
• Integrate the principle of sustainable
  development into country policies and programs
  and reverse the loss of environmental resources
• Halve, by 2015, the proportion of people without
  sustainable access to safe drinking water
• Have achieved, by 2020, a significant improvement
  in the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers

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Goal 7 Environmental Sustainability (2)
Source UNDP 2003
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Goal 7 Environmental Sustainability (3)
Source UNDP 2003
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Challenges for Universities V Environmental
Sustainability

• More attention to urgent issues like WEHAB
  (water, energy, health, agriculture,
  biodiversity)
• Urban issues

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Goal 8 Global Partnership (1)

• Targets
• Develop further an open, rule-based, predictable,
  nondiscriminatory trading and financial system
• Address the special needs of the least developed
  countries (e.g. debts problems)
• Address the special needs of landlocked countries
  and small island developing states

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Goal 8 Global Partnership (2)

• Targets
• In cooperation with developing countries, develop
  and implement strategies for decent and
  productive work for youth
• In cooperation with pharmaceutical companies,
  provide access to affordable essential drugs in
  developing countries
• In cooperation with the private sector, make
  available the benefits of new technologies,
  especially ICTs

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Goal 8 Global Partnership (3)
Source UNDP 2003
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Challenges for Universities VI Global Partnership

• Partnership in education and science in addition
  to the stated targets like trade, finance and new
  technologies
• Focus on the least developed countries

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Challenges for Universities VII General Issues

• Policy-relevant knowledge (e.g.
  indicators)
• Place-based science
• Interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity
• New contents of traditional disciplines

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Conclusion

• Millennium Development Goals represent a novel
  approach, a truly new Global Deal, in
  particular by setting quantitative targets for
  the development at the global level. The most
  important institutions, including
  intergovern-mental organizations and
  transnational corpo-rations, are taking
  challenges of the MDG very seriously.
  Universities should be in the fore-front of this
  world-wide effort.

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Thank you for your attention