UN launches website to fight global poverty with Google, Cisco

from Earthtimes

Two high-tech Internet companies joined with the United Nations Thursday to launch a website that will track progress of a UN programme to halve poverty around the world by 2015. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon pushed the key to launch www.mdgmonitor.org built by Google and Cisco under the leadership of the UN Development Programme, which finances projects in developing countries. The goal to halve world poverty is part of the UN programme known as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

"Achieving the goals is a truly global task, requiring governments, international organizations, private companies and civil society to work together," Ban said.

An estimated 1 billion of the world's 6.6 billion people still live on less than a dollar a day. The UN said also that millions of children under 5 die every year from malnutrition, malaria, AIDS and infectious diseases.

"Clearly, we are facing a development emergency - and we need emergency action," Ban said, adding that data in the MDG Monitor will help both the public and private sectors find information, track progress, identify gaps and pinpoint areas where additional efforts are needed.

Representatives from Google and Cisco said Web surfers can use Google Earth to "fly anywhere on the planet and explore from above, in three dimensions, the places where work is being done to realize the MDGs."

They said users can access country assessments and data to better understand the fight against poverty and how to achieve progress.

The MDG programme was adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2000, setting the 2015 target date to achieve progress in fighting poverty, HIV/AIDS, universal primary education, the reduction of child mortality and ensuring environmental sustainability.