Rt Hon Alistair Darling MP
MORNINGSIDE & BRUNTSFIELD GAZETTE SEPT 2007
One of Gordon Brown’s first acts when he became Prime Minister was to ask for a report on what we must do to meet the Millennium Development Goals and to eradicate illiteracy, disease and poverty.
Earlier this year, the UN Secretary General reported there has been some progress towards the goals but he also made it clear that there was a need for urgent and concerted action, especially in Africa. 315 million people live on a dollar a day, hunger still strikes and 77 million girls and boys around the world will never get the chance to go to school. Only last week, one of my constituents spoke to me about the Ribban Children’s Trust which she launched last year. The Kenyan government spends only £7.50 on each child’s education per year. The Ribban Trust is a charity that has been set up to directly support Ribot and Bandiat Primary schools in rural Kenya in their mission to provide basic education. They hope to establish a link between a local school here in Edinburgh and the two schools in Kenya.
Our local churches along with our schools are amongst the most committed campaigners to end poverty. And it goes beyond campaigning to doing other things that make a difference – like running Fairtrade stalls which are now very popular and help to deliver the message that trade is crucial to growth and improving the income of the poor.
I was pleased to see the Prime Minister launching the Global Health Campaign this month. Seven countries in Africa and Asia - Burundi, Ethiopia, Kenya, Mozambique, Zambia, Cambodia and Nepal – are in the first phase to sign up to the new International Health Partnership (IHP). This is a campaign to build national health services in some of the world’s poorest countries. The IHP aims to accelerate progress on millennium development goals by fighting illnesses like HIV/AIDS, cutting childhood deaths and improving maternal mortality.
And during the summer, after the UN Secretary General’s report on the disappointing progress of the millennium goals, the Prime Minister went to New York to address the United Nations directly. He is clear that we must live up to the promises we made. The scale of the challenge is such that we cannot leave it to some other time and some other people. We have the science, technology, medicine and wealth to help those who need it now.
