Achieving the Millennium Development Goals. The Russian Federation

In this article Olga Sheremetova, currently a student in the Master programme Higher Education Research and Development at the University of Kassel, Germany, explains how the Russian Federation is working on the Millennium Development Goals’ implementation.
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Country Office which is responsible for the implementation of the MDGs began its activities in the Russian Federation in1998, though UNDP had been present in Russia since 1993, when the framework agreement was signed with the Government of the Russian Federation (The United Nations Development Programme in the Russian Federation, 2006). It is necessary to mention that in Russia internationally accepted MDGs were adopted and customized to better fit the country-specific context. The Russian Federation is a very special case. On the one hand, it is a permanent member of the UN Security Council and member of the G8 club of the world's leading nations. On the other hand the problem of poverty is very serious and particularly visible at the regional level. Russia has significant potential in education, and well-developed health care system but bad indicators in the last mentioned issue are mainly a result of prevailing unhealthy lifestyles. Read more...