{"id":15,"date":"2008-05-03T06:32:00","date_gmt":"2008-05-03T06:32:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ec2-54-213-215-163.us-west-2.compute.amazonaws.com\/?p=15"},"modified":"2022-10-25T22:21:00","modified_gmt":"2022-10-25T22:21:00","slug":"the-uns-millennium-development-goals-whats-missing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bobfreling.com\/index.php\/2008\/05\/03\/the-uns-millennium-development-goals-whats-missing\/","title":{"rendered":"The UN&#8217;s Millennium Development Goals: What&#8217;s Missing?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Formulated by the&nbsp;<strong>United Nations<\/strong>&nbsp;as a blueprint for meeting the needs of the world\u2019s poorest citizens, the&nbsp;<strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.un.org\/millenniumgoals\/\">Millennium Development Goals<\/a><\/strong>, or \u201cMDGs\u201d as they\u2019re referred to, set forth a bold and comprehensive prescription for eradicating extreme poverty, achieving universal primary education, promoting gender equality, reducing child mortality, improving maternal health, combating HIV\/AIDS, and protecting the environment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Astonishingly, access to modern&nbsp;<em><strong>energy has not been included<\/strong><\/em>&nbsp;by the United Nations as one of the Millennium Development Goals, despite the fact that, without an energy component, none of the MDGs are ultimately achievable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Didn&#8217;t they know that&nbsp;<strong>Energy is a Human Right<\/strong>?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>They should&#8217;ve asked my friend\u00a0<strong>Dr. Paul Farmer<\/strong>\u00a0(<a href=\"https:\/\/www.pih.org\/\">Partners In Health<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He&#8217;d tell them that&nbsp;<strong>a reliable energy source is essential for the operation of hospitals and clinics<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>With the exception of Egypt and South Africa, 85 percent of Africa\u2019s 680 million people live in rural areas without electricity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Diesel generators are the traditional solution \u2014 but hardly the best. Diesel is expensive and polluting, emitting greenhouse gases among other chemical compounds. And generator breakdowns are common, with replacement parts typically miles and days away.<br><br>Faced with a choice between solar and diesel at five rural health clinics in eastern Rwanda,\u00a0<strong>Partners In Health<\/strong>\u00a0took the solar path, collaborating with\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.self.org\/\">SELF<\/a>\u00a0on systems for the communities of Mulindi, Rusumo, Rukira, Nyarabuye, and Kirehe. The systems are solar- diesel hybrid systems that generate 90 percent or more of their power from the sun, with diesel generators for back-up during prolonged heavy usage, or in periods of rain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Back to Dr. Farmer.&nbsp; Here&#8217;s what he said about the impact of solar power on the operations of his clinics:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;You can&#8217;t do this without electricity. Because you&#8217;re not going to have an operation room. You&#8217;re not going to have a laboratory. You&#8217;re not going to see people at night&#8230;&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Formulated by the&nbsp;United Nations&nbsp;as a blueprint for meeting the needs of the world\u2019s poorest citizens, the&nbsp;Millennium Development Goals, or \u201cMDGs\u201d as they\u2019re referred to, set forth a bold and comprehensive prescription for eradicating extreme poverty, achieving universal primary education, promoting gender equality, reducing child mortality, improving maternal health, combating HIV\/AIDS, and protecting the environment. Astonishingly,&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":269,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bobfreling.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bobfreling.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bobfreling.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bobfreling.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bobfreling.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.bobfreling.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":442,"href":"https:\/\/www.bobfreling.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15\/revisions\/442"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bobfreling.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/269"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bobfreling.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bobfreling.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bobfreling.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}