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Bill Addressing Millennium Development Goals Moves Through Committee

On November 1, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved, by voice vote, a bill (S. 1315) that would require the State Department to submit a report to Congress on the progress the international community is making toward achieving the Millennium Development Goals.

Sponsored by Chair Richard Lugar (R-IN), the International Cooperation to Meet the Millennium Development Goals Act contains a number of findings, including:

  • At the United Nations Millennium Summit in 2000, the United States joined more than 180 other countries in committing to work toward goals that would improve the lives of the world’s poorest people by 2015;
  • The Millennium Development Goals include reducing by 50 percent the number of people living on less than $1 per day, reducing child mortality by 65 percent, and assuring basic education for all children, while sustaining the environment upon which human life depends;
  • The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States concluded that the United States must be an example of moral leadership in the world and offer parents and their children a vision of the future that emphasizes individual educational and economic opportunity as essential to U.S. efforts to defeat global terrorism;
  • On June 11, 2005, the United States helped secure the agreement of the Group of Eight Finance Ministers to cancel 100 percent of the debt obligations owed to the World Bank, the African Development Bank, and the International Monetary Fund by countries that are eligible for debt relief under the Highly Indebted Poor Countries Initiative; and
  • The United States has recognized the need for strengthened economic and trade opportunities, as well as increased financial and technical assistance to Africa and other countries burdened by extreme poverty, through significant initiatives in recent years, including the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (P.L. 106-200), the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (P.L. 108-25), and establishment of the Millennium Challenge Corporation.