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22/12/2000 The Millennium Summit The Millennium Summit was held at UN Headquarters in New York from 6 to 8 September 2000, the 189 UN member states having resolved that the turn of the century represented a unique and symbolic opportunity for a fundamental review of the role of the UN. Among the challenges that the Summit addressed were how to pull billions of people out of abject poverty, strengthen UN peace operations, and deal more effectively with the world's environmental problems. The principal result was a Declaration containing a statement of values for the international agenda. Freedom, equality (of individuals and nations), solidarity, tolerance, respect for nature and shared responsibility were unanimously agreed upon as six values fundamental to international relations in the next century. The Declaration also acknowledged that the central challenge currently facing world leaders was to ensure that globalisation becames a positive force for all. Member States acknowledged that at present both its benefits and its costs were unequally shared. The Declaration called for duty-free and quota-free access for essentially all exports from the least developed countries, as well as an enhanced programme of debt relief for heavily indebted poor countries and a strategy to minimise the adverse effects of economic sanctions on innocent populations. World
leaders also pledged a comprehensive reform of the Security Council
and further strengthening of the International Court of Justice
to promote and protect international peace. The Summit was notably lacking however in agreements as to how these pledged should be implemented or on what timescale, and although more concrete objectives were agreed upon in relation to poverty reduction and development, these built largely on previous or ongoing work. Nevertheless
the Millennium Declaration did provide a method of recording these
objectives in more formal fashion. It is worth rehearsing the aims
again. By the year 2015, the proportion of people with an income
of less than one dollar a day will be halved. By the same year equal
access to all levels of education for girls and boys should be ensured
and primary schooling for all children everywhere should be guaranteed.
Further objectives include a 75% reduction in maternal mortality
by 2015 and a significant improvement in the lives of at least 100
million slum dwellers by the year 2020. The reversal of the spread
of HIV/AIDS, malaria and other major diseases should also have begun.
©EuropaWorld 2000 - Copyright Policy
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