In the last chapter of his book The Book of the Poor Kenan Heise discusses the UN’s efforts to help end world poverty and other important issues affecting people around the world. The UN uses institutions and globalized cooperation between developed states and developing states in order to tackle these problems. These issues are effected by fluctuating global conflicts such as the Syrian crisis, which created thousands of refugees. This project is led by the Department of Economic and Social Affairs in the UN Secretariat. These “millennium development goals,” as they are called, include the following: to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger, to achieve universal primary education, to promote gender equality and empower women, to reduce child mortality, to improve maternal health, to combat HIV/Aids, malaria, and other diseases, to ensure environmental sustainability, and to facilitate global partnership for the purpose of globalized development. Each year the UN publishes reports on the progress of these goals as the 2015 “deadline” approaches.
From the 2013 report, the biggest successes/improvements were decreasing the proportion of people living in extreme poverty, increasing access to clean drinking water, decreasing the mortality rate from disease, a decrease in those living in slum areas with poor sanitation, an increase in trade with developing countries, and a decline in hunger for these areas. Improvement has been slow in regards to environmental problems, child mortality and maternal deaths, sanitation, the amount of aid money going to poor countries, gender-based inequalities, access to education, and knowledge about HIV/AIDS transmission.
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