Bole (N/R), Feb. 4, GNA - The first ever District Millennium Development Goals Committee in the country has been established in Bole to set the tone for a meaningful development of the District. The 13-member Committee, which aims at effecting the full implementation and monitoring of the goals at the district level is chaired by the District Chief Executive, Madam Elizabeth Salamatu Forgor with the District Information Officer, Mr Leonard S. Tingbani, as secretary.

In his address at the first meeting of the Committee, a former Millennium Development Goals (MDG) advocate, now Pastor for the Bole Church of Pentecost, Reverend Achim Gyimah, explained that the MDGs was a challenge the global community had set for itself.

He said it was to afford poor countries the opportunity to demonstrate good governance and commitment to reduce poverty and that the goals were also a challenge for the wealthy countries to keep their promise to support economies and social development of poor countries. The first goal he explained was targeted at reducing by half the proportion of people whose income was less than one dollar between 1990 and 2015 as well as to reduce by half the number of the suffering and hungry people in the world.

Pastor Achim Gyimah said the goals also sought to ensuring that children the world over attained a complete course of primary education. It would further eliminate gender disparity in the primary and secondary education by 2015 and in all levels of education not later than 2015 and again target reducing by two-thirds the mortality rate of children below five years, he said.

He said efforts would also be made towards reducing by three quarters the maternal mortality ratio, whilst also starting a process of holding back the spread of the deadly HIV/AIDS, the incidence of malaria and other major diseases."

The course of action would also involve integrating the principle of sustainable development into the country's policies and programmes to help reverse huge losses of environmental resources, he said

Pastor Gyimah said it would also help to reduce by half the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation and deal comprehensively with developing countries' debts, provide access to affordable essential drugs as well as make available the benefits of new information and communication in co-operation with the private sector.

Facilitating the formation of the first ever MDGs Committee, Mr Abraham Ayensu Peters of the Ibis International a non-governmental organisation, expressed the hope that the establishment of the Committee would attract the attention of the United Nations.

The goals, he noted, had become globally accepted as the benchmark of progress and development saying, "the implication being that all those who claim to work for the progress and development of their communities could not shy away from the tenets of the objectives. 04 Feb. 06