A main proponent for the equality of individuals, the United Nations, has spawned an entity to monitor and promote human development: The United Nations Development Programme. The UNDP issued a global proclamation in July 2002: the Millennium Project, an independent advisory project commissioned by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and supported by the UN Development Group. Projects such as these set benchmark goals for both developed and developing nations in order to move towards a more uniformly globalized world. The local populations of each nation participating in these projects are in turn influenced by the procedures their governments take in order to meet the demands set forth by said projects. SOURCE

 

The UNDP objective:

“Working in cooperation with developing countries and other partners, the project has set up an expert task force to prepare strategies to help countries achieve the goals by bringing together the best current thinking and research. Its work includes reviewing innovative practices, prioritizing policy reforms, identifying means of policy implementation and evaluating financing options.” SOURCE

 

 

Figure C: Millennium Development Goals set forth by the United Nations Development Programme

 


Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger


Reduce by half the proportion of people living on less than a dollar a day
Reduce by half the proportion of people who suffer from hunger


Achieve universal primary education


Ensure that all boys and girls complete a full course of primary schooling


Promote gender equality and empower women


Eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education preferably by 2005, and at all levels by 2015


Reduce child mortality


Reduce by two thirds the mortality rate among children under five


Improve maternal health


Reduce by three quarters the maternal mortality ratio


Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases


Halt and begin to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS
Halt and begin to reverse the incidence of malaria and other major diseases


Ensure environmental sustainability


Integrate the principles of sustainable development into country policies and programmes; reverse loss of environmental resources
Reduce by half the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water
Achieve significant improvement in lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers, by 2020


Develop a global partnership for development


Develop further an open trading and financial system that is rule-based, predictable and non-discriminatory. Includes a commitment to good governance, development and poverty reduction—nationally and internationally
Address the least developed countries’ special needs. This includes tariff- and quota-free access for their exports; enhanced debt relief for heavily indebted poor countries; cancellation of official bilateral debt; and more generous official development assistance for countries committed to poverty reduction
Address the special needs of landlocked and small island developing States
Deal comprehensively with developing countries’ debt problems through national and international measures to make debt sustainable in the long term
In cooperation with the developing countries, develop decent and productive work for youth
In cooperation with pharmaceutical companies, provide access to affordable essential drugs in developing countries
In cooperation with the private sector, make available the benefits of new technologies—especially information and communications technologies

 

 

According to Mark Malloch Brown, UNDP Administrator, in a statement 20 January 2003, the MDG was gaining momentum. “From a relatively low profile at the beginning of 2002, the MDGs have now come to occupy a pivotal position on the global development agenda.” The genius of which “is the blend of energetic, new staff bringing fresh development skills with our rich, existing talent pool; individuals who have grown up professionally in the complex multicultural world of development co-operation where the capacity to cross barriers and build trust is not an instant skill, but acquired by experience.”SOURCE

 

To reiterate, this development agenda is that of the United Nations, a vaguely governing global body that acts in the interest of its stakeholders. Their new staff embodies similar motivators which continue to endorse this perceived legitimate authority. The global development agenda in which they speak of is one in which benefits the members of the United Nations since in theory it makes their economies more competitive by the process of developing social and cultural factors.

 

In short, the UN has defined certain supposed problems (digital divide) and prescribed them to each nation. It then created a development program (UNDP) in which to combat this problem further legitimating the digital divide as an issue. Furthermore, the UN upholds this legitimacy by publicizing its program policies to member nations who in turn accept its conditions and strive to react properly, again giving the digital divide additional legitimacy as a conceived and actual phenomenon.

 

One such legitimating organization is “the Digital Opportunity Initiative (DOI), a public private partnership of Accenture, the Markle Foundation, and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), launched at the G-8 Okinawa Summit in 2000, with the aim of identifying the roles that information and communication technologies (ICT) can play in fostering sustainable economic development and enhancing social equity.” SOURCE

 

 

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