MDG Funding
Introduction
A combination of increasing personal debt within society, donor fatigue amongst corporations and inability by governments to meet internal financial commitments have brought about a perfect storm of dwindling funding for humanitarian and developmental causes.
The People's Foundation, providers of MDG Achievers, in partnership with The People's Vision, a sister develpment company, has developed a powerful portfolio of premium services, including an MDG focused mobile payment solution, which have been designed to generate funding that can be directly applied to projects that help achieve the Millennium Development Goals. These premium services are available in a different online network managed by The People's Vision, and is advised at the bottom of this page.
But first a short overview of key issues relating to MDG funding.
As the the Millennium Campaign has noted: "Additional (financial) resources must be delivered free of harmful conditionalities and without causing another downward spiral of debt."
The stark reality is that the wealthiest nations and governments in general have other priorities, as Ban Ki Moon, UN Secretary General noted when he said:
"World military spending has now risen to over $1.2 trillion. This incredible sum represents 2.5 per cent of GDP(global gross domestic product). Even if 1 per cent of it were redirected towards development, the world would be much closer to achieving the Millennium Development Goals." -
Funding Shortfalls
The following comments by Professor Jeffrey Sachs, the world renowned economist, made ahead of the MDG summit of September 2010, cover the funding challenges that must be met if the Millennium Development Goals are to be met. These unmet objectives are in smallholder agriculture, education, water and sanitation, health, climate financing, empowering girls and women, infrastructure, and strategies and goals at the local level.
Professor Jeffrey Sachs notes:
“The world has the crucial opportunity to innovate, by creating new institutions and new ways of doing things, in both the public and private spheres....Unfortunately, for several MDGs, we know what works but we don’t yet have a funding mechanism to connect the proven interventions, the necessary financing, and the strong management needed for implementation.”
Professor Sachs goes on to touch on the following key areas, which need to be addressed. These are:
- Smallholder Agriculture. The new Global Agriculture and Food Security Plan, according to Professor Sachs, is still undercapitalised. He wrote there is a need to continue to mobilise the US$22 billion over three years, promised for smallholder farming at the 2009 G8 Summit in L’Aquila, Italy.
- Education. A new Global Fund for Education would help upgrade and capitalise the current Fast Track Initiative on Education for All funding mechanism, he argued, adding: “A major priority should include helping girls to continue from primary to secondary school.”
- There is a need for an overarching multilateral funding mechanism for water and sanitation, Professor Sachs observed.
‘MDGs have inspired breakthroughs’
- Health. Many governments, the economist wrote, “have rightly called for new health systems financing. The best approach would be to merge the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation and the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria into a new single Global Health Fund with added responsibilities for health systems.”
- Climate financing. A new Global Climate Fund, “would ensure systematic international financing for climate change adaptation and mitigation,” he noted.
- Another unmet objective, he stated, is “support for empowering girls and women, through legal changes and through practical investments in micro-finance, smallholder farming (where most of the farmers are women), and other means to empower poor women in poor communities.”
- The final unmet need noted by Professor Sachs is “to help countries integrate the various strategies and goals at the local level, by creating networks of MDG teams in villages and districts throughout their countries.”
The need for sustainable funding solutions
So if this funding is to be generated where will it come from? With the global economic downturn, the donations-based model has proved wholly ineficient and completely unsustainable. The solution clearly must be sustainable and can only be from the type of partnership proposed for achieving the Millennium Development Goals - partnerships between Civil Society, the Private Sector and Government. Some initiatives will have to come from the Private Sector and Civil Society alone, and in this context, The People's Foundation and The People's Vision have developed a Private Sector & Civil Society focused ICT portfolio supported by an inclusive business model which, amongst other objectives centered around sociel development and economic empowerment, generate funding for MDG project areas presented by Professor Sachs.
The greater role of ICT
ICT has the capability to empower through provision of access to information, education and services. It also has the capability to empower economically, although this is naturally overlooked because traditional business models are not implemented along the lines of a single bottom line policy of Profit at all Cost, instead of the progressive triple bottom line policy of People, Planet & Profit.
The People's Foundation and The People's Vision have therefore collaborated to co-develop an integrated ICT platform powered by an inclusive business model designed according to the triple bottom line policy of People, Planet & Profit.
The People's World - An MDG Funding Social-Business Network
MDG Achievers is a humanitarian-collaboration community for people and organizations involved in projects and activities that help achieve the Millennium Development Goals, and as a support community for all game players of MDG Game - www.unpan.org/mdggame. As such the MDG Achievers community provides only free services, has no premium paid for services and has no commercial activity that can generate funding that helps achieve the Millennium Development Goals.
The role for MDG Funding is thus taken up by a purpose-driven social-business network called The People's World that has been developed by The People's Vision in association with The People's Foundation, providers of the MDG Achievers solution.
The People's World combines a broad portfolio of applications with a revenue-share based inclusive-business model that enables funding to be generated for MDG projects and initiatives through multiple channels that collectively each contribute a percentage of all transactions. This portfolio of applications include MDG Pay, a powerful mobile payment solution that can be used by all phones and which incorporates MDG virtual currencies designed to virally create awareness of the MDGs and reward loyalty for MDG supporting eCommerce and Retail transactions.
If you would like to learn more about the MDG Funding activities of The People's World - please email The People's Foundation on: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .
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