UN MDG Fund supports legislators’ advocacy

MANILA, Philippines - With about two years left in the countdown to achieve the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals (MDG) agreed last 2000 by all UN member-countries, the Philippine government and the MDG Fund are pooling their strengths to realize these targets.

In a meeting with House Deputy Speaker Lorenzo Tanada last Feb. 6, the UN expressed its strong support to the advocacy of the Philippine Legislators Committee for Population and Development (PLCPD) to ensure that “no sector is left behind” in meeting the MDGs.

“This initiative of the PLCPD provided the lagging sectors the venue to push their agenda, and for Congress to reach out to its constituents through its representative and legislative roles,” said Luiza Carvalho, UN resident coordinator.

Included in the meeting were seven sectors represented by their civil society organizations. They were identified using a 2010 study by the Philippine Rural Reconstruction Movement called “The Other MDG Report,” which identified these sectors as being left behind in achieving the MDGs.

Dubbed as the “left behind sectors” are female sex workers, males who have sex with males, internally displaced Moros in Mindanao, urban poor, out-of-school youth, small-scale fisherfolk, and small-scale farmers.