UN ties up with Google, Cisco to fight poverty

UNITED NATIONS: The United Nations joined hands with information technology giants Google and Cisco to launch an innovative online site to track progress toward the goal of halving global poverty by 2015.

UN chief Ban Ki-moon, flanked by UN Development Program (UNDP) Administrator Kemal Dervis, Michael Jones, chief technologist at Google Earth and Cisco Senior Vice President Carlos Dominguez, launched the MDG (Millenium Development Goal) Monitor at UN headquarters.

The site, available at www.mdgmonitor.org, enables UN agencies, governments policymakers, development experts and non-governmental organizations to track progress toward the povery-reduction MDGs in a number of categories in nearly every country of the world.

"Having the tools to closely monitor date on the MDGs is one of the most important requirements" for meeting the MDGs, Ban said. "The MDG Monitor will not only help measure progress towards the Goals, it will also identify gaps and pinpoint areas where additional efforts are required."

One of the key MDGs aims by 2015 to reduce by half the proportion of people living on less than a dollar a day and also by half the proportion of people suffering from hunger.