Neglecting the plight of the world’s poor

Five years after setting Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) at the United Nations, world leaders gathered last month to assess their progress in achieving them at the World Summit in New York. If any indicators were needed to this end, the UN Human Development Report 2005 (HDR 2005) has arrived in the nick of time to show that a change in policy and politics is needed if countries are indeed to meet their goals by 2015. These changes include countries putting less emphasis on military forces, expenditure and conflict resolution; and more emphasis on international aid, trade and security. At the moment, the chances of countries meeting the set millennium goals are minimal. This reminder could not be any timelier for an unstable Lebanon. What are the UN Millennium Development Goals? At the September 2000 UN summit, world leaders agreed to a set of time-tabled, measurable goals and targets for combating