Southerners Need 15 Years To Achieve MDG’s It is possible to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, MDGs in South Sudan but the time is limited according to the South Sudanese women representatives, led by Hon. Betty Achan, Deputy Chairperson of Constituency Development Fund, CDF. 09 May 2011 Southerners Need 15 Years To Achieve MDG’s Hon. Betty Achan speaking to Gurtong while in her office, Juba [©Gurtong]
By Waakhe Simon Wudu JUBA, 7th May 2011 [Gurtong]-It is possible to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, MDGs in South Sudan but the time is limited according to the South Sudanese women representatives, led by Hon. Betty Achan, Deputy Chairperson of Constituency Development Fund, CDF. “For us to achieve the MDGs we should be given 15 years,” Hon. Betty Achan the Deputy Chairperson of the CDF in the Southern Sudan Legislative Assembly said. Eradication of extreme poverty and hunger, achieving universal education, promoting gender and empowering women, reduce child mortality, improve maternal health, combating HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases, integrating the principles of sustainable development into country policies and programs and develop a global partnership for development she said needed more time for the Southerners to achieve. Together with Lilian Riziq, the President of the South Sudan Women’s Network, SSWEN, they spoke to Gurtong in an official interview in her office late last week in Juba. Betty said that, following the establishment of the Government of Southern Sudan, GOSS six years back, the government and partners were mainly concentrated in implementing the historic peace deal-Comprehensive Peace Agreement, CPA that was signed. The struggle to ensure that, the census conducted in 2008, elections in 2010 and the referendum for secession in January this year with other CPA arrangements have affected different ways in achieving the full implementation of the MDGs. In an effort to reduce child mortality, improve maternal health and fight HIV/AIDS Betty said that; “there are no health facilities like hospitals, health units and centres are even limited in urban areas not forgetting health experts.” Hon. Betty was speaking shortly after arriving from Addis Ababa where she was attending the Inter-governmental Authority on Development, IGAD meeting. The meeting that ended last week on 29th April was scheduled to assess the achievements and challenges of women engagement on peace building and security initiatives in the IGAD Region. The four days meeting she said discussed and devised ways forward on how to improve efforts on tackling eradication of poverty, achievement of universal primary education, reduction of child mortality, improvement of maternal health and environmental sustainability. Lilian Riziq who also attended the meeting as a member of the civil society from South Sudan underscored the meeting’s objectives, saying that it was very important to the women leadership of South Sudan. Riziq added that, they were able to compare and contrast mechanisms they will employ to approach women issues in Southern Sudan as it becomes an independent nation in July this year. The meeting brought together members of civil society, Ministry of Gender and Members of Parliament from all the members States of the IGAD Community. Betty said that, the meeting resolved and launched an initiative referred to as “Africa Unite to Fight”. “The member States in the meeting resolved that, the different representatives to launch this initiative in their various countries hence campaign to fight violence against women,” Betty said. Posted in: Home -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "JFD info" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/jfdinfo?hl=en.
