Press Briefing

Millennium Development Goals (MDG) Report 2008

Friday, 12 September 2008
Vienna International Centre (VIC)

Summary Report

Following the launch of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) Report 2008 by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in New York on 11 September, the UNIS Vienna organised a press briefing on 12 September with the participation of a number of prominent speakers, including the Austrian State Secretary for European and International Affairs Hans Winkler, National Director of Care Austria Ulrike Schelander and the Acting Head of UNDP's Poverty Practice Unit in Bratislava, Slovakia, Andrey Ivanov. UNIS Vienna Director Maher Nasser moderated the event.

Approx. 40 representatives from the media, the UN system, permanent representations and the civil society attended at the press conference.

In his introductory remarks at the press conference, UNIS Director Maher Nasser echoed Secretary-General Ban

Ki-moon's confidence that the MDGs were achievable and quoted the Secretary-General's remarks that for that to be possible: "we must really galvanize political will and mobilize necessary resources".

Austrian State Secretary for European and International Affairs Hans Winkler praised the MDG Report as a valuable document worth studying in great detail and expressed his full agreement of Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's reference to the need for an "aggressive push" to move forward. In order to fulfil the commitments made by donors, he said that additional resources were needed as there will not be any major debt relief operation in 2009 and 2010. Mr. Winkler called upon the future Government of Austria to live up to this commitment.

National Director of Care Austria Ulrike Schelander attributed to women the key to the fight against poverty and called up that development programs need to focus more on empowering women and girls to enable them to build up their confidence, skills and capacities to overcome their own discrimination in wider society. She noted that also Austria - as one of the richest countries of the world - is challenged. Austria's current ODA rate is about 0.49 per cent including debt relief, but just over 0.20 per cent without debt relief. Ms. Schelander stressed that Austria will need to come up with fresh money for ODA as debt relief is done.

Human Development Policy Adviser at the Regional Bureau for Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States in the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Mr. Andrey Ivanov, highlighted that the MDGs are relevant to countries of Eastern Europe and the CIS, though they may at first glance seem less applicable to these countries as a more-or-less developed region. In order to achieve the MDGs, Mr. Ivanov summed up that one may be "cautiously optimistic." But in order to convert this cautious optimism there is the need to be consistent in what the Governments pledged in 2000 and to be adequate in terms of what is really done regarding measures, progress and policy reactions.

The briefing was followed by a question-and-answer session.