“My message is the following: if you can overcome this conflict, there is a bright future. This is a country with lots of resources, a large population and the opportunity to succeed and flourish,” said Helen Clark at a Bogota conference on the Millennium Development Goals (MDG).
“If the guns can be put aside, people can focus on the social, economic, and environmental needs and there is nothing that can stop this country,” said the UN official.
Colombia’s foreign minister Angela Holguin opened the conference by saying that the country is close to fulfilling goals laid out for 2015. According to the foreign minister, by most standards they were “over 90%” towards reaching their development goals.
The best performing areas, according to the conference, were in the eradication of extreme poverty and hunger, universal access to primary education, gender equality in school enrollment and a two thirds reduction in the child mortality rate.
The MDGs were started in 2000 to ensure development in areas of extreme poverty and hunger, education, gender equality, child mortality and health.