Millenium Development Goal Short Essay

MDG Short Essay: Education to Development The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), signed by at least 190 countries, are a list of eight aims developed by the United Nations to promote international development in developing countries. They hope to achieve most of them in most countries by their target date 2015. The goals are listed as: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger; Achieve universal primary education; Promote gender equality and empower women; Reduce child mortality; Improve maternal health; Combat HIV/AIDS, Malaria and other diseases; Ensure environmental sustainability; and Develop a global partnership for development. The second goal, to achieve universal primary education, is an important key to the realization of the seven remaining goals. And that is because, education is the basis of development. If, as mentioned in the class notes of "Our Developing World", education is the growth of knowledge and development is growth, then there is clearly a link between the two.

In the textbook "Introduction to International Development", one of the theories of development, the neo-liberal approach is mentioned with the "economic growth and open markets as the main solutions to poverty", favoring the first goal. Yet, economy will only grow with the effort of the people in it and so will the open markets. But if most dwellers are uneducated, there will be a huge negative impact on the growth and development. Such is the case with nearly all developing countries. Not to mention that poverty is caused by low income. Therefore, education will also lead to earning better salaries through better jobs. Hopefully, shifting from absolute poverty to relative poverty, or even better, no poverty.

Education, specifically sex education, is also popularly linked with HIV/AIDs. Thus, if more people knew about safer sex practices and STDs, the occurrences of HIV/AIDs will likely fall, favoring the sixth goal. Nevertheless, we should keep in mind that many do get them by...