Millennium Campaign Comes To Claremont

by Steve Hochman
The Student Life
March 5, 2006

On Friday, February 24, Pitzer College welcomed the United States Millennium Campaign Coordinator, Carol Welch, to speak about her work in the fast-growing fight against world poverty.

The Millennium Campaign, forged by 189 world leaders in 2000, has set eight goals for the world to accomplish by 2015. These goals include eradicating extreme poverty and hunger, achieving universal primary education, and developing a global partnership for development.

Welch said that although the fast development of the world has yielded many benefits, “globalization has created both winners and losers.” She went onto discuss the chief motivation behind the Millennium Challenge, based on the premise that “no one should not see their basic needs met.”

When asked why these goals were different than the hundreds of other promises to eradicate these problems, Welch responded, “All of these goals have specific targets attached to them and deadlines to get there.”

She went on to note how universal the effort was to reach the Campaign’s goals. “This is an unusually large global commitment,” she said. Because the group has so many nations on-board with defined roles,she said it is likely that the organization will achieve its goals.

Welch’s role as the United States Coordinator is to make sure that the U.S. holds up its end of the bargain. In past years, the United States has given less than one percent of its annual budget to developing nations, the second-lowest figure for all developed countries.

“Simply put, without the U.S. taking part, it will be impossible to meet the Millennium goals,” Welch said.

In 2005, the Millennium goals were reassessed one-third of the way through the process. “So far, we have seen a mixed record of success,” said Welch. “The progress has been slow, but patchy.”

She urged that we need to be extremely wary of averages, which might indicate advancements, while the problems remain.

So far, the sub-Saharan region of Africa is showing the least sign of improvement, but progress is being made overall.

Before ending her talk, Welch discussed the variety of activities that have been taking place, especially on college campuses, to help push this process toward completion. So far, the Millennium Campaign has garnered help from planned fasts, call-ins, school-to-school challenges to determine who can gather more aid, and even courses taught about the Millennium Campaign. As Welch explained, knowledge is one of the first steps to success.