UN, Google, Cisco Team to Track Poverty

The United Nations teamed with technology giants Google Inc. and Cisco Systems Inc. to launch a new website yesterday that will provide data and a bird's eye view of global efforts to fight poverty and meet UN development goals by 2015.

The Millennium Development Goals, which world leaders approved at a UN summit in 2000, provide the latest statistics on health, education, malnutrition, women's equality and other measures that contribute to poverty.

On one portion of the new site, a Web surfer can also use Google Earth's map and satellite imagery to fly anywhere on the planet and 'explore' the places where work is being done to achieve the goals.

"They can see successes and celebrate those, and observe failures or shortfalls... and redouble their country's commitment to pursue those efforts. So it's very exciting for us," said Michael Jones, chief technologist for Google Earth and Maps.

The goals include cutting extreme poverty by half, ensuring universal primary school education, reducing child mortality by two-thirds, starting to reverse the HIV/AIDS pandemic and halving the proportion of people without access to safe drinking water.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called Thursday's launch 'crucial' because it makes all information on the UN goals available in one place for the first time "for all who seek it, with a few simple clicks of the mouse."

Ban lamented that – midway between the goals' adoption in 2000 and the target completion date of 2015 – almost 1 billion people live on less than one dollar a day; millions of children die every year before their fifth birthdays from causes associated with malnutrition; infectious diseases including AIDS and malaria take "their worst toll on countries that can least afford it" and millions of people live in slums.

"Clearly, we are facing a development emergency – and we need emergency action. For the first time in history, the world has at its disposal the means to cut poverty in half in the span of a generation," the secretary-general said.

Ban said achieving the goals was a matter of political will. "There is no silver bullet, but the resources, knowledge and tools for achieving the goals do exist."

The new Web site is one of those tools because it will enable policymakers and development experts to learn from one another's successes and setbacks, and it will increase public access and attention to the UN. goals, Ban said.

At the end of his speech, Ban put his hand on the mouse of a laptop computer together with Jones, of Google; Carlos Dominguez, a Cisco Senior Vice President; and Kemal Dervis, UN. Development Program Administrator.

The UN Development Program, which is facilitating the new Web site, said the budget for the project was $200,000, and it received $150,000 from corporate donors.

UNDP's Dervis said the data on the MDG Monitor comes from a variety of UN. agencies, the World Bank and governments around the world. But he noted that statistics are sometimes difficult to obtain and can conflict.

"We hope to gradually overcome these weaknesses and open the site to all organizations who gather statistics to offer their information," he said.