UN pledges to halve poverty fall flat

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From Fazle Rashid
NEW YORK, May 17: In September of 2000 the world committed to confront and conquer poverty in all its forms. The United Nations, with the largest gathering ever of the world leaders, had solemnly pledged to halve poverty and hunger, put every child through primary school, protect women's right, limit spread of disease and preserve natural resources by 2015.
Very little progress has been made. The number of hungry people in the globe in fact has risen according to a statistic of another UN agency. More than one billion people across the globe will need to be fed. The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) have in fact been submerged under the debris left the economic hurricane that has ravaged the global economy.
Nine years have gone by since the pledges were made. Every one in five people live on less than a dollar day which is some improvement from one in three living under one dollar a day 15 years ago. One billion people still live under abject poverty. Same number of people lack access to safe drinking water, more than 6000 people die of AIDS each day and more than 750 million adults cannot read. These figures are from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
Water is life, says an adage. But half of world's school going children have no access to safe drinking water. More than half have no toilet or a place to wash hands. Water and sanitation-related diseases kill more children worldwide that HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis combined.
There will be no disagreement on demand that clean water and basic sanitations are as essential to children's education as teachers and textbooks.