Latest Updates:

You can pledge your support here.

You can now download the latest MDG–Factsheet!

You can now download the latest comprehensive list of YGL_PLEDGES here in Davos!

You can download our latest MDG Press Release here.

Background

In his September 2009 opening address to the UN General Assembly, President Barack Obama announced a countdown to the September 2010 Millennium Development Goal (MDG)-focused summit that will take place at the United Nations. The President stated unequivocally that the United States “will support the Millennium Development Goals, and approach next year’s Summit with a global plan to make them a reality.”

The MDGs are the world’s goals, and are dedicated to advancing the wellbeing of the billion poorest and most marginalized people on the planet still living on less than $1/day. They have spurred an unprecedented common global agenda for partnership. Bill Gates has called them “the best idea for focusing the world on fighting global poverty that [he has] ever seen.” The 2010 Summit will be the last major opportunity for the world to put in place a coherent and practical plan for achieving the integrated set of targets in time for the internationally agreed 2015 deadline.

The Young Global Leaders’ MDG Working Group has three main goals: (1) To mobilize individuals, companies, and non-governmental organizations to make concrete, action-oriented pledges that contribute to the achievement of the MDGs. Pledges are made under any of three headings: delivering services, raising awareness, or raising funds., with emphasis on numbers of real people affected. (2) To leverage these pledges in a manner that builds awareness and thereby supports the adoption of a robust intergovernmental MDG action plan at the September 2010 UN summit, and (3) To recommend a mechanism by which broader elements of society can make concrete MDG contributions on an ongoing basis through to 2015 – a “people’s plan” for the MDGs.

Leaders

Co-chairs: Johann Koss, John McArthur
Task Force Members: Wilmot Allen, Mina Al-Oraibi, Tewodros Ashenafi, Alja Brglez, Amy Butte, Erik Charas, Jo Cox, Jamie Drummond, Salimah Ebrahim, Mack Gill, Piia-Noora Kauppi, James Kondo, Ellana Lee, J. Julianne Lee, Acha Leke, Nancy Lublin, Efrat Peled, Dina Powell, Kate Roberts, Cameron Sinclair, Kirstine Stewart, Michael Tarazi, Mabel van Orange, Andrey Zarur

Looking For

On our planet of 6.7 billion, 1 billion suffer from hunger, while another 1 billion suffer from obesity and related life style diseases. The global dichotomy – where people are dying of hunger while others are literally eating themselves to death – is both ironic and alarming. It represents the world today – one that we need to redesign. TABLE FOR TWO addresses these two issues simultaneously.

The mechanism is simple. Every time you eat a healthy TABLE FOR TWO meal at a participating company cafeteria or restaurant, 20 cents is donated to fund a school meal in a country suffering from hunger. As you prevent your obesity, you are also helping a child alleviate hunger. You meal is his/her meal. You are eating a win-win meal together at a TABLE FOR TWO.

Leaders

James Kondo, Moto Furukawa, Kumi Fujisawa

Background

The global state of human healthcare requires immediate action from all its stakeholders: national governments, regulatory and funding agencies, corporate players and health advocates. This task force constitutes a broad umbrella under which a number of YGL led projects are being executed. The main objective at this high level is to identify “gaps” or deficiencies at the systems level for healthcare in the areas of innovation, distribution, and policy. These gaps are being analyzed through a number of “lenses” including, prevention, wellness, emphasis on NCDs. This analysis will ultimately lead to coordinated efforts within stakeholder groups and smarter allocation of financing at the systems level.

Leaders

Andrey Zarur, Bjarte Reve

Background

In July 1946, the World Health Organization (WHO) wrote in its constitution that: “Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being, and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.” How do we get closer to this ideal and how do we measure it in positive terms? We know what it means to be sick. What does it mean to be well? How do we the measure success of prevention programs? What is our vision for global wellness? The World Economic Forum has created the Global Competitiveness Indicators where each country is measured up against each other for their ability to economically compete in the global market place. Within this competitiveness indicator, health and education are small factors of competitiveness. The health component currently measures factors such as life expectancy, maternity and child mortality, and prevalence of infectious diseases like malaria, tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, and diarrhea. In this instance, health is primarily being defined within a disease framework. The YGL Healthcare Taskforce would like to create and test a “Wellness Factor” which would measure global wellness compiling various indicators that go beyond infectious diseases and life expectancy. It would be a “measure of success” for all kinds of prevention programs around the world implemented by government, private sector and civil society. It also may become an indicator of productivity potential and future disease risk/rates.

Looking For

1. Other areas in the world which are measuring wellness, research on wellness factors, governments who started working with wellness
2. Define a working definition of wellness
3. Outline possible indicators of wellness
4. Compile the indicators and test for relevancy
5. Communication around wellness factors, press and media plan, evaluation plan of initiative
6. Implementation of the wellness factor

Leaders

Co-chairs: Teresa Kay-Aba Kennedy, Johann Koss Members: Andrey J. Zarur, J. Joseph Kim, Bjarte Reve, Aaron McCormack, Damian Gammell, Eunice Olsen, Jake Leslie Melville, Josef Penninger, Khuat Thi Hai Oanh.

In 2009, the number of chronically hungry people in the world passed the one billion mark – nearly one sixth of humanity. Despite life-changing advances in technology enjoyed by developed countries, real progress toward food security, clean water, and health among the very poor continues to elude us. At the core of this complex challenge lies our failure to sufficiently leverage global capacity to design, develop, and deploy technologies that will improve the lives of the poor.

The Global Responsibility License (GRL) is designed to make IP available for development uses while preserving protection for commercial uses and managing institutional risk. Unlocking IP across multiple technology sectors will foster innovation and kickstart the design, development and deployment of technologies. Combined with technical and legal support to ensure the license’s terms are tailored to the technologies and organizations involved, the GRL has the potential to bring down barriers faced by current patent commons initiatives and foster new partnerships on a scale previously unachievable.

Leaders

James Moody, Siobhan Walsh, Adam Bly, Boris Nikolic

Over 400 million school-aged children worldwide suffer from parasitic worms, harming their health, nutrition and cognitive development, and threatening their educational access and learning. Worms can lead to anemia and malnutrition, and as a result, children are either too sick or too tired to concentrate in class or to attend school at all.

However, there is a safe, simple, and cost effective solution: mass school-based deworming. According to Michael Kremer [Harvard Univer- sity], a YGL and founding member of the task force: “Mass treatment of school children for parasitic worms, at a cost of less than 50 cents per child per year, is one of the most cost effective ways to increase school participation of any approach rigorously tested.” Deworming has also been identified by a group of Nobel Laureates and other economists at the Copenhagen Consensus Center as one of the most efficient and cost effective solutions to global challenges facing us today.

Led By: Vikram Akula, Erik Charas, Esther Duflo, Kristin Forbes, James Kondo, Michael Kremer, and Alejandro Ramirez

Background

5% for the Future is a call to action for global health donors to allocate 5% of their HIV/AIDS funding to initiatives led by young people (under 30).

Almost half of all the new HIV infections in the world happen among people between 15 and 24 years old. Young people are at the heart of the epidemic and young people should be at the heart of stopping it. Nevertheless, when it comes to leading and funding efforts to fight HIV/AIDS, young people are generally ignored or marginalized by donors, international organizations and large NGOs. While there is funding for youth-focused initiatives, they are generally controlled by the traditional large NGOs and only a trickle of the billions in HIV/AIDS funding goes to support youth-led initiatives. 5% of the Future aims to reverse that by increasing funding to youth led initiatives.

This initiative calls on global health donors to pledge 5% of their annual funding for HIV/AIDS to support initiatives led by young people (under 30).

Investing in young people is smart because:

• Young people have passion, creativity and relevant skills.
• Young people know how to reach and inspire other young people.
• Young people are best positioned help their peers prevent transmission.
• Young people know how to leverage new technologies, media and communications.
• Young people can do more with less.
• Young people can inspire the rest of the HIV movement.
• Young people will lead the next generation of the fight against HIV/AIDS.

Substantially increasing resources flows to youth-led organizations should result in the scaling up of more innovative, effective and cost-effective HIV prevention initiatives as well as helping to catalyzing a new generation of young leaders in HIV/AIDS. The criteria will be measured on several levels.: first, the donors that sign on / endorse the 5% pledge; second, the incremental increase in funding directed to youth-led initiatives; and third, the impact of the resulting programs that are able to be taken to scale as a result of the additional support.

Leaders

Currently Engaged