Millennium Development Goals

On World AIDS Day 2014 Dance4Life aims to have at least one million young people dancing simultaneously together for life, and most of them will have participated in the Dance4Life Schools Project. Despite the physical distance and cultural differences, we will all dance together, all dressed in white, all supporting the need for change. With this powerful 'statement of hope' we will make it clear to the media and to governments that fighting HIV and AIDS is the greatest global challenge and that world leaders and governments should keep their promise!

What promise?

At the United Nations Millennium Summit (September 2000), world leaders agreed to an ambitious agenda for reducing poverty and improving lives. The eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are the result of that meeting, each with their own targets to monitor social, economic and environmental progress. Goal number six addresses HIV and AIDS and other diseases.

The MDGs recognise that effective prevention and treatment programs will “save lives, reduce poverty, and help economies develop.” In addition, developed and developing countries should work together to eliminate poverty and push back HIV and AIDS. Further commitments were made in the the Declaration of Commitment on HIV/AIDS, to which 189 countries agreed in June 2001. Under the theme “Stop AIDS. Keep the Promise”, the WAC 2005-2010 will seek to ensure that these and other promises on HIV and AIDS are kept.

"We will have time to reach the Millennium Development Goals - worldwide and in most, or even all, individual countries - but only if we break with business as usual. We cannot win overnight. Success will require sustained action across the entire decade between now and the deadline. It takes time to train the teachers, nurses and engineers; to build the roads, schools, and hospitals, to grow the small and large businesses able to create the jobs and income needed. So we must start now. And we must more than double development assistance over the next few years. Nothing less will help to achieve the Goals." Kofi. A. Annan, Secretary-General of the United Nations.