The UN Millennium Development Goals, which will come to an end in 2015, have certainly given us a lot to celebrate. Yet extreme poverty is as much a threat to children today as before. We need to ask ourselves some hard questions as to why this is.
As many readers of this blog will know, the UN Secretary General's High Level Panel (HLP) of Eminent Persons on what comes after the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) expire in 2015 is due to report at the end of May.
No, this isn't another dire prediction about the end of the world - but, in 1,000 days, we will arrive at the end of 2015. That's when the world is supposed to reach the endpoints for the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the targets set by the global community in 2000 for various improvements in the state of the world's people.
It's hard for us to imagine life without the humble loo. It's a basic necessity; a UN-recognised human right. However, for an overwhelming two thirds of the population in South Asia, a loo is a luxury that's out of reach.
I was actually at the launch of the Commission for Africa in May 2005. While the Commission made a big show about having African input into the consultations, I couldn't help but notice that the Ethiopian I was sat next to was one of the few Africans in the audience. Everyone else seemed much of a piece: officials from BINGOs (Big NGOs), western journalists, a few civil servants, and Labour Party workers.
In the week that Kenyans went to the polls I was reminded of a morning three months ago walking through the streets of Freetown, Sierra Leone. The pace of the country's capital was not at its usual frantic level. Queues were steadily forming around voting booths, observers busy checking materials, and polling station staff working from morning to late into the night. It was the 17 November 2012, election day in Sierra Leone.
Growth is only a means and not an end to eradicating poverty. It will only lessen inequality if part of a wholly reoriented system - one with a place for a word unfamiliar to the Cameron vocabulary and conspicuous by its absence from the official communiqué: redistribution.
What has gone wrong? Why can't we get our act together? Although a number of factors contribute to this quagmire, it is the misuse and abuse of three attributes of state governance that is the root cause of many of the problems we face today - politics, democracy, and accountability are the most widely misunderstood words in the country.
A colleague of mine working on the post-Millennium Development Goal (MDG) framework said only last week "we get the chance for deep thought in the development sector once every 20 years, let's not waste it". Judging by the speech to UK civil society organisations, Ivan Lewis MP, shadow secretary of state for international development, is seizing the moment.
A child's right to protection is everything - and the Millennium Development Goals, agreed at the turn of the century with ambitious development targets for 2015, have achieved much we should be proud of.
This week, David Cameron sets off to Liberia's capital, Monrovia, for influential UN talks on what should replace the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) when they expire in 2015. The cynics would say this is another talking shop, an opportunity for the great and the good to come together and pontificate on poverty. I am not one of them.
It is high time we consigned the disturbing numbers of people who are malnourished to yesteryear and instead looked forward toward a brighter future where these problems are defeated thanks to effective, and relentless, public-private partnerships (PPPs).
I believe the world is failing girls and women. They need more targeted support in social protection, job creation and education if we are to turn the tide of this trend and close this unacceptable and growing gap.
During November, Poverty Week will see over 70 national broadcasters run a series of films on the theme of "Why Poverty?" The event is designed to trigger a broader debate about the causes of poverty and what can and should be done to counter it.
It was clear from the 250 people who attended the panel's outreach meeting on Friday afternoon that we are indeed a diverse bunch. And rightly so - we are meant to be 'civil society', and if our claims to represent the more than one billion who live in poverty are to be taken seriously, we need to represent that range of complex inter-related needs.
The High Level Panel meeting in London today has to perform a high wire act. In full public view they are balancing the interests of governments, private sector and civil society to get agreement on a new set of development goals for the world.
The Millenium Development Goals are a story of success. But they have also served to highlight some of the world's most persistent challenges, most notably the scourge of inequality.
It's not just down to me to tackle poverty. It's not just down to me individually, to my organisation, or to the UK. The sooner we stop abdicating responsibility and expecting 'someone' to sort it all out, the better.
The concept of development, through which governments view social policy in environments where capitalism is the mode of social organization, may be up for a major rethink, globally. This year, policy signals at agenda-setting global convening and major publications seem to be heralding new directions.
There are currently 215 million women in the world who lack access to basic reproductive healthcare. Millions more are without due to lack of education, funding and distribution; or for cultural, social and religious reasons which prevent them from accessing sexual health services.
When it comes to providing modern energy services, for instance, does sustainable development mean centralised grid infrastructure powered by large scale low carbon generation? Or does it also mean experimenting with off-grid solar home systems and other micro-generation technologies?
Five-year-old Aliya thinks it is some kind of a game she must soon master to be a winner. From the time she wakes up till she goes to bed Aliya watches her mother and all girls and women in her neighbourhood consumed in a frantic race. They all make beedis - the traditional hand-rolled Indian cigarettes.
I'm not suggesting that Twitter is obliged to take responsibility for delivering international social progress in the form of free speech. But its global reach and impact are massive. Its leadership has serious negotiating power and can make bold decisions.
Figures on births, lives and deaths are technically known as "vital statistics" - literally meaning statistics about life. But they are also vital in another sense - planners of health care and other services desperately need to know about the populations they are trying to serve, rather than relying on guesses and assumptions.
But this World Toilet Day (19 November), there are 2.6 billion people across the world who have nowhere safe to go to the toilet. That's two out of five people for whom a toilet is an unimaginable luxury. Meanwhile, almost 900 million people are forced to risk their lives on a daily basis by drinking dirty water because they have no other option.
