UN in Kenya launches MDG public service announcements

Nobel Laureate Prof. Wangari Maathai, boxing champion Conjestina Achieng, and artists from the Kenyan music scene joined with the UN System in
Kenya to launch a communication and advocacy campaign focusing on the
need to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in Kenya by 2015. The
MDGs, adopted by the world’s governments at the Millennium Summit in 2000,
are a set of eight time-bound measurable objectives for reducing poverty
and hunger, improving health and well-being and protecting the environment.

The UN-led campaign, developed and produced in Nairobi, is built around
eight one-minute public service announcements (PSAs) that highlight the
role of the UN in assisting Kenya achieve its MDG objectives, including
preventing the spread of HIV/AIDS. National television and radio stations
KBC, KTN and Citizen will begin to broadcast the PSAs in the run up to the
2005 World Summit, which takes place in New York on 14-16 September.

At the Summit a record number of Heads of State will debate essential UN
reforms and review progress towards the MDGs.

The year 2005 is crucial in our work to achieve the Goals said the Acting
Resident Coordinator of the UN in Kenya and UNICEF Kenya Representative,
Mr. Heimo Laakkonen. “Instead of setting targets, this time world leaders
must decide how to achieve them. A major push is needed if we are to
achieve the required objectives by 2015,†Mr Laakkonen continued, noting
that while most regions were showing good progress toward most of the
goals, results are much less encouraging in sub-Saharan Africa.