According to Bitner (1989), for mass communication to
exist, we need an intermediate transmitter of information, a Mass Medium, such as:
·
Newspaper
·
Magazine
·
Film
·
Radio
·
Television
·
Books or a
combination of these.
In order to achieve these eight millennium development
goals adopted by the international community, the above listed mass medium have
to be combined.
These eight (8) millennium development goals are as
follows:
1. Eradicate
Extreme Poverty and Hunger
The first and most important of the
united state development goals is to end extreme poverty. To reach this goal,
it has set two achievable targets.
The first is to reduce the number of
people living on less than a dollar a day by half.
The second is to reduce the number
of people suffering form hunger by half.
Though this MDG has some success,
places like sub-Saharan African and some southern Asia have not made much
progress. In sub- Saharan African more that half of the workers are paid less
than $1 per clay, thereby reducing people’s ability to support their families
and reduce hunger. In addition in many of these areas, women are kept out of
the work force, placing the pressure to support their families entirely on
males in the populations.
To further the success of this first
goal, the UN has set a number of new goals some of these are to increase
regional and international co-operation on food security, reduce distortions in
trade, ensure social safety nets in case of economic slowdowns worldwide,
increase emergency food aid, promote school feeding programs and assist
developing countries in switching from subsistence agriculture to a system that
will provide more for the long term.
2. Universal
Education
The second Millennium Development Goal
is to provide all children with access to education. This is an important goal
because it is believed that through education future generations will have the
ability to reduce or put an end to world poverty and help to achieve worldwide
place and security.
An example of this goal being
achieved can be found in Tanzania in 2002. That country was able to make
primary education free to all Tanzanian children and immediately 1.6 million
children were enrolled in schools there.
3. Gender
Equality
In many part of the world, poverty
is a large problem for women than it is for men, simply because in some places,
women are not allowed to become educated or to work outside the home to provide
for the families. Because of these, the third millennium development goal is directed
at achieving gender equity around the world. In order to do this, the UN hopes
to assist countries in eliminating the gender disparity in primary and
secondary education and allow women to attend all levels of school if they so
choose.
4. Child
Health
In nations where poverty is rampant, one out of ten
children dies before they reach the age of five. Because of this, the united
nations fourth millennium development goal is committed to improving children’s
health care in these areas. An example of an attempt to read this goal by 2015
is the African union’s pledge to allocate 15% of its budget to health care.
Malnutrition is both a cause and a
consequence of under-development. Recent decades have seen consistent reduction
in the daily per caput supply of calories in many countries. The international
conference on nutrition held in December 1992 drew attention to the fact that
more than 780 million people in the world suffer from chronic malnutrition and
that, each year, some 13 million children below the age of five die from
infectious diseases that can be directly or indirectly attributed to hunger or
malnutrition. Nutritional well-being is not just a question of food availability
and economics among families; however, it also depends on sufficient knowledge
and acceptance of appropriate diets. At the planner’s level, incorporating
nutritional concerns into development initiatives for agriculture, food
security, forestry, land use, exports and so forth requires an increased
awareness of nutritional proprieties since these are not spontaneously
identified in such disciplines.
5. Maternal
Health
The UN’s fifth millennium development goal is to
improve the system of maternal health in poor, high fertility countries where women have a much greater chance
dying during childbirth. The target of these this goal is to reduce by three: -
quarters the material mortality ratio. Honduras for example is on its way to
achieving this goal by reducing its maternal mortality rate by half after
imitating a monitoring system to determine causes of death in all such cases.
Moreover, population growth is
exerting pressure on natural resources, on food production and on the ability
of government to provide basic services and employment opportunities. Population
growth depends on choices made by individuals. Helping people to make more
informed choices by raising their awareness of the implication of family size,
and unwanted pregnancy method of contraception requires a lot of information
dissemination and awareness creation. It equally requires reading book,
learning how to make such issues socially acceptable and worthy of urgent action.
Insight into people’s underlying attitudes are needed before they can be helped
to change their views.
6. Combat
HIV/AIDS and other Disease
Malaria, Hiv/Aids and tuberculosis are the three most
significant public health challenges in poor, developing nations. To combat
these diseases, the Un’s sixth millennium development goal is attempting to
halt and then reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS, T.B and malaria by medication to
cure or lessen the effects of the diseases.
7. Environmental
Sustainability
Because climate change and the
exploitation of forests, land, water and fisheries can significantly harm the
poorest populations on the planet who
depend on natural resource for their survival, as well as wealthier nations,
the Un’s seventh millennium development goal is aimed at promoting
environmental sustainability on a worldwide scale. The targets for this goal include:
integrating sustainable development into country polices, reversing the loss of
environmental resources, reducing the number of people without access to clean
drinking water by half and improving the lives of slum dwellers.
8. Global
Partnership
Finally, the eight goal of the millennium development
goal is the development of a global partnership. this goal outlines the
responsibility of a poorer nations to work towards achieving the first seven MDGs by promoting accountability of citizens and efficient use of resources. Wealthy
nations on the other hand are responsible for supporting the poorer ones and
continuing to provide aid, debt relief and fair trade rules.
This eight and final goal serves as
a capstone for the millennium development the goals of the UN as a whole in its
attempt to promote global peace, security, human rights and economic and social
development by 2015.