Lonneke Van Genugten presentation on the free webinar "Myths & misunderstandings about the millennium development goals" | Ong 2.0

1. Myths & Misunderstandings about
the Millennium Development Goals
A multimedia journey:
how to engage the audience?A multimedia journey:
How to engage the audience
with the MDGs
Lonneke van Genugten
Deputy editor-in-chief OneWorld
@longenug
www.oneworld.nl

2. About OneWorld
Dutch leading platform on global & sustainable development

3. About OneWorld
Dutch leading platform on global & sustainable development

4. About OneWorld
Dutch leading platform on global & sustainable development

5. Our Mission
§ OneWorld is your link to the world:
bringing global issues to a local level
§ Website, magazine & events
§ www.oneworld.nl: daily news, data,
blogs, jobs, DIY
§ 120.ooo subscribers magazine
§ 130.000 unique visitors/month

6. This is how we do it
§ Investigative journalism
§ Data
§ Human interest
§ Global connections
§ Independent, innovative, future proof,
easy accessible, open, crowdsourcing
§ Our motto: Be Part of it!

7. OneWorld audience
§ Citizens who care
§ Young professionals
§ Students
§ Frontrunners & innovators
§ Conscious family life

8. The Millennium Development
Goals (MDGs)
§ 8 Goals (21 sub-targets and 58 indicators)
§ Focus on social development
§ Based on Millennium Declaration
September, 2000, adopted by largest
gathering of world leaders (189 countries).

9. § Poll: Facts & Positions:
§ Globally 2 billion people live in extreme
poverty
§ Each year 6.3 million children die before
their fifth birthday
§ Saving lives leads to overpopulation
§ Trade, not aid, will save the world

10. Progress overview
§ 46% of countries is performing better than
expected at several targets (though not always on
track to meet them)
§ Grand sweep from the bottom is easier than
finetuning
§ 90% kids go to school (82% 1990)
§ 6.3 million kids <5 die each year (12.7m 1990)
§ 42% decline malaria mortality
§ 2.3 billion people gained access to clean drinking
water
§ Only 50% of pregnant women in developing
regions receive recommended health care

11. Progress MDGs
§ In general: mixed results.
§ Sub Sahara Africa is lagging
behind in many cases.

12. What the critics say
§ “It’s very clear to my mind that those
goals are not going to be met..[…]
Ultimately you arrive at a situation
where a child has an education
but the economy has not grown”
Economist
Dambisa Moyo

13. What the critics say
‘I thought we had done a useful job,
inventing the MDGs. Now I’m starting to
doubt it. The MDgs are becoming a
simplification of the development
agenda’
MDG-architect
Jan Vandemoortele

14. What the critics say
‘The MDGs will go down in history as a
success in global consciousness-raising, but
a failure in using that consciousness for its
objectives.
What a tragedy for all of those who
contributed such effort and enthusiasm.
And a much larger tragedy for the world's
poor.’
Economist
William ‘Bill’ Easterly

15. What the critics say
§ “Dedicating money to development aid
is a leftwing hobby”
Dutch rightwing
PVV-politician
Geert Wilders

16. What the critics say
§ “Why 0.7%? Because it’s our moral
duty? Development aid is no core
business of the government”
Politicians Stef Blok &
Ingrid de Caluwe
VVD (prime minister’s party)

17. Multimedia feature: our goals
2. Informing people to fund the
discussion with fact based arguments
3. Connecting people: MDGs are
relevant to everybody
1. Involving the Dutch audience in the
MDG discussion to unmask the aid
support paradox. While poverty has
declined significantly over the past 25
years, criticism has increased.

18. Our Team
§ Creatives, data scrapers,
developers, researchers
& editors

19. No white saviour complex
§

20. No simplifications

21. No poverty porn*
*Any type of media (written,
photographed or filmed), which exploits
the poor’s condition in order to generate
the necessary sympathy for selling
newspapers or increasing charitable
donations or support for a given cause

22. Our Guiding Principle
§ Show, don’t tell. Let data tell the story
§

23. OneWorld Data Atlas
§ Data from Worldbank, OECD, UN etc
§ API (communication tool to exchange
data to different platforms)
§ CKAN: open source data management
system that makes data accessible
§ Interlinking data (girls to school – child
marriage)
§ Interactive maps are embeddable,
shareable
§ Our data are downloadable and available
to everyone

24. Myths and misunderstandings about
the MDGs
§ Myth: We’re done, we managed to
halve the amount of people that
live on less than 1,25 dollar a day!
§ Inflation: in 1990 1,25 dollar was worth
2,25 dollar today

25. Myths and misunderstandings about
the MDGs
§ Myth: If we immunize all children
against diseases (f.i. measles, polio) it
will be too crowded on this planet!
§ 7.3 billion people on earth today
123,000 births today 34,000.000 this year.
Population growth this year: 20 million
It takes a generation to adapt birth rate to better
life circumstances

26. Myths and misunderstandings about
the MDGs
§ Myth: If all countries share 0.7% of their
GDP, we could make poverty history
§ 125 dollar/year/person
§ Experts say: 66 billion/year
§ Tax evasion & corruption costs: 1 trillion/year

27. Involving artists around the world

28. MDG 1, Dingchang Peng, China

29. Brainstorm session: let’s have fun
How to keep an
online game
Simple & Sticky

30. Online game Travel Your World
§
Fun
Factor!

31. Portraits of citizens who dream of a
world without poverty and act upon it

32. What we learnt from there
§ Testing, testing, testing…and testing again
§ Keep on tracking outcome & impact
§ The general audience does care about poverty
§ It’s not just about informing,
also engaging
§ Timing is everything (launch summer game
after the World Cup)
§ Provide the audience with follow-up. Not a
stand alone topic, but a continuing story
§ Bring your content to different outlets

33. Pillowfight for love

34. movie

35. 100,000 #thankyoufortapwater

36. Fighting for good food

37. OneWorld Love

38. Find out more at
Past, present and futu
www.oneworld.nl
#Millenniumdoelen
#Data Atlas
Lonneke van Genugten
Editor OneWorld
@longenug
www.oneworld.nl