Ambassador School of Global Leadership

Delegate: Becky Choe

Committee: ECOSOC
Topic B: (The International Transition from Millennium Development Goals to Sustainable
Development Goals)
Country: Argentina
On September 8, 2000, leaders from the United Nations gathered in order to adopt the
United Nations Millennium Declaration. This Declaration assigned nations to a new global
partnership to reduce extreme poverty, and set out a series of eight time-bound targets (with a
deadline of 2015). This has been known as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The
eight goals were:
•Eradicate extreme hunger and poverty
•Achieve universal and primary education
•Promote gender equality and empower women
•Reduce child mortality
•Improve Maternal Health
•Combat HIV/AIDS and other diseases
•Ensure environmental sustainability
•Develop a global partnership for development
It has been recorded that the MDGs played an important role in the development of
Argentina.
During the early 21st century, Argentina began the new millennium with a devastating
economic and political crisis which led to a series of unfortunate events, including the rise of the
poverty level within the Argentinean population. Argentina’s poverty level has been unstable
throughout the last thirteen years. Due to the financial crisis in 2002, the poverty level increased
from 6.1% in 1990 to 21.5% in 2002. Also, from June 2007 to June 2009, the poverty level
decreased 40.6% but it increased again to 30% in 2010.
Furthermore, Argentina’s universal education goal was to achieve 100% of literacy level
among citizens. By 2007, the percentage has increased to 95%. According to the Program for
Development of the United Nations, Argentineans achieved 100% primary level of literacy by
2008, meaning that all Argentineans are primary level educated. This initiative promoted gender
equality greatly since this achievement includes both sexes.
The unemployment rate has also dropped over the years from 17.3 in 2003 to 7.2 in 2012.
It is believed that the recent government interest and improvement of Argentina’s social
infrastructure after the 2002-2003 crisis was the cause of this positive outcome.
Yet, there is still room for more improvements in areas such as ending hunger, achieving
full gender equality, and health services. We believe that moving onto a sustainable path will
help solve the issues. The global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), will guide policy and
funding for the next 15 years. In the new sustainable development agenda, it aims to end poverty,
promote prosperity and people’s well-being while protecting the environment by 2030. UNDP
has a key role to play in supporting Argentina to make this vision a reality—putting societies on
a sustainable development pathway, enhancing resilience, and advancing prosperity and
wellbeing. They have already made progress by supporting the government to integrate the
SDGs into the national development plans and policies. Through this plan, we hope that our
country will soon achieve all of our goals by the end of 2030.

Citations
*https://www.thegef.org/sites/default/files/ncsa-documents/9181-
Argentina_MDG_Report_2005.pdf
*http://www.un.org/press/en/2014/gashc4098.doc.htm
*https://www.oecd.org/countries/argentina/46817825.pdf
*http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2013/04/24/latin-america-millenium-development-
goals
*http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/
*http://www.indexmundi.com/argentina/millennium-development-goals.html
*https://knoema.com/WBMDG2015Jan/millennium-development-goals-january-
2015?country=1000970-argentina