This report provides a synopsis of the global Internet forum on International Leadership for the MDGs and Leveraging Technology for Human Rights and Peace

1. EOTO World Global Internet Forum Report
International Leadership for the MDGs
&
Leveraging Technology for Human Rights and Peace
The following report is only to serve as a synopsis for stakeholders and
beneficiaries of EOTO World. Forums are hosted in accordance with EOTO
World’s project EXCHANGE program that connects Human Rights Activists
around the globe in online spaces to discuss and build skills to affect the MDGs
and a culture of peace. Following every forum, participants receive a customized
resource guide related to the forum theme, designed to continue to assist global
efforts toward anti-poverty and peace.
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2. On 18-20 July, 2012, EOTO World hosted the global Internet forum. 21 Activists from 9
countries participated in a variety of sessions throughout the forum. A list of countries
represented via participants from that area of the world is recorded under each session
summary.
Forum Rationale
As the 2015 deadline approaches for the completion of the MDGs, world leaders have
begun the process to think through remaining challenges to halt extreme poverty. The
importance of the MDGs spans across all nations and populations. The MDGs is of
particular consequence to the youth within these nations, whom often inherit poverty via
economic, gender and social inequalities. Whereas there are advancements happening
for the MDGs overall, the most vulnerable people are being left without much recourse.
In a statement made within the 2011 UN Millennium Development Goals Report, the UN
Secretary General Ban Ki Moon revealed: “progress tends to bypass those who are
lowest on the economic ladder or are otherwise disadvantaged because of their sex,
age, disability or ethnicity... and disparities between urban and rural areas remain
daunting.” Thus, EOTO World believes it is important for Activists to share and build
resources that will help them address the MDGs in more innovative ways to advance
the anti-poverty agenda.
In addition to cultivating leadership for the MDGs, technology for both human rights and
peace are becoming staples to activism. As the world becomes more digitalized, it is
important for Activists to have affordable access to technology and capacity building to
identify and use technologies to advance their causes. Leveraging technology can bring
a wealth of information to stakeholders in a cause, and mobilize mass amounts of
people faster. Furthermore, tools to collaborate among peers, organize work and
manage contacts are as important for Activists to leverage as strategies to move the
masses into action.
Forum Goals
EOTO World embarked on a mission to host a forum on International Leadership for the
MDGs and Leveraging Technology for Human Rights and Peace to:
 Engage youth with innovative ways to move the MDG agenda forward
 Shed light on Indigenous populations as one representation of vulnerable
people on the margins of the progress of the MDGs and ways to assist the
movements
And
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3.  Provide guidance on the basic use of technology to enhance human rights
documentation and the dissemination of strategic messages to stakeholders
Notes from forum sessions
Session: Indigenous populations and the Millennium Development
Goals
Language: Spanish
Countries represented: USA, Mexico, El Salvador
Percentages from polls:
100%-A little bit aware about the Millennium Development Goals
100%-Everyone is affected by the MDGs equally
66% MDGs very important for your community
33% My community is not informed about MDGs
Participants felt that the information for the MDGs was often watered down, making it
harder to address.
Views on the diffusion of information about MDGs:
1. There isn’t enough info in the local news that can be applied to the present reality on
the ground in communities in Mexico. Funds are misappropriated because the budget is
not used effectively for Indigenous persons.
2. El Salvador experiences similar situations. Primarily, there is not enough practical
information for civil society to integrate Indigenous groups into popular participation
spaces like university or television.
Participants identified that funding for Indigenous MDG projects were hard to come by,
particularly where sovereignty of Indigenous people is held in high regard. Participants
were asked for examples anywhere in Latin America that has received MDG funding
and how it has affected the community.
Views on how the MDGs affect specific communities or countries in Latin
America:
1. Mexico: Chiapas has been the only State that received funding for 2-3 projects
geared towards the MDGs, mainly due to the rise of the leftist group Zapatista Army of
National Liberation, back in 1994. Unequal distribution of the funding, affect the majority
of the population in that area, which is Indigenous. More information should be given in
public schools and throughout all areas of society and forms of communication, with a
start in local efforts as well.
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4. A presentation on the impact of the MDGs for Indigenous women was made by Ms.
Dali Angel Perez, Coordinator of Red de Mujeres Jovenes Indigenas, which is a part of
the Central American and Mexican Indigenous Women’s Alliance. Resolutions for
bettering conditions for Indigenous women are cited below.
Goals for the political participation of Indigenous women:
1. Make it possible for women to be active in the struggle that affect Indigenous women
and children.
2. Increase positions of leadership for the youth, increasing their chances to be heard.
There are currently no mechanisms within the state to get to those positions of power.
Examples of including Indigenous women in political participation include what has been
done in international spaces:
 Participation in Rio +20 and the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous
Issues
 2 representatives from the Indigenous network at the Economic Community of
the West African States meeting
3. Intergenerational support (local): Create a place where older and younger women
share experiences and wisdom to learn from one another and build a camaraderie
between adult and young women to become in tune with the rights of all women.
An example of creating intergenerational support is when there was a seminar done
with 4 generations of Indigenous women to provide tools at the judicial, national and
spiritual levels. The teachers are women who have struggled to get to their positions in
life. Efforts are made by the women in the seminar to stop dependence on state
funding. The safety of the space depends on the lived experience, harmony and shared
bonds in a learning space for the network of Indigenous youth.
4. Make efforts to rescue the respect for mother earth through agriculture, conservation
of all kinds of life and ritual ceremonies by educating other populations outside
Indigenous shared spaces.
An example: The women get involved in activities they already practice daily (e.g.
making textiles and tortillas for the community) to become more proficient in their own
craft and educate the rest of the population. Projects depend on state funding at first,
then on organizations and their own labor. The entire experience empowers Indigenous
populations to rely on themselves, lived experiences and to know what they want and
how to ask for it.
Present challenges for political participation of Indigenous women:
1. Advocating for the rights of Indigenous women’s rights to land; the majority of the
land is given to men. Women have to be married in order to gain rights. When her
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5. husband dies, she can administer the rights until her son becomes of age.
2. There is not enough consultation with the Indigenous populations about
implementation of projects. The educational models imposed by the state do not respect
identity and mother tongue. The same dismissal of values by the state happens with the
teachings from older generations of Indigenous peoples.
3. The challenges of the Millennium Development Goals cannot be discussed in general
terms for Indigenous populations; the census does not reflect Indigenous realities. Input
is neither asked nor required to implement the projects that involve Indigenous
populations in most cases. Additionally, there is no explanation of legal terms. To
Indigenous populations, words such as “development” do not mean to appropriate
lands or to promote immigration to the city.
4. There are laws that produce paternalist and existentialist programs that disrupt
Indigenous collectivity and self-governing character. These programs only assign
activities (i.e. cleaning and sweeping in schools) with low pay, which exacerbate poverty
levels of the Indigenous populations in Central America and Mexico. Instead of
addressing the root of the problems, only a temporary band aid is applied as a solution.
Moreover, there is no mention of multiculturalism.
Participants wrapped up this session agreeing that greater efforts of Indigenous peoples
must be made to become a united voice. Alliances of organizations, young Indigenous
women and sisters who have become prominent at the international levels are priority.
Session: MDGs & Youth
Language: English
Countries Represented: Ghana, Costa Rica, Mexico, Pakistan, Uganda, USA, Nigeria
Percentages from polls:
100% believe that youth 35 and under can impact the MDGs
90% agree, 10 % disagree that there are some MDGs that are more important to
address now than others
100% of participants work toward the MDGs in their community
A presentation on how youth can impact the MDGs and the way forward was made by
Dr. Raphael Ogar Oko, International Coordinator of the Millennium Development
Ambassadors which is centrally housed in Nigeria.
Views on the MDGs:
1. The MDGs are a well formed strategy because each goal compliments the other. The
goals are mutually interdependent.
2. Within each nation, there are developed and developing individuals, so nations can
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6. look inward to their own communities instead of outward to places like the UN to
achieve the MDGs.
Group Questions:
1. MDG's are important but they are not achieved by countries, so what can done to
achieve some of them by 2015?
Responses:
 Focus on youth to facilitate and drive MDGs within their community to make it
personal.
 Create family and community development goals. If you think about it, a
millennium is actually longer than 2015 because a millennium is 1,000 years!
Each of us can work toward achievement of the goals.
2. What is your view about the proposed Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that
came out of Rio+20 and how do you see them in relation to the MDGs?
Responses:
 The world wants to see more than just some developed nations but a completely
developed world. Several initiatives to facilitate development connect to a
common point, but the task is to establish a culture of global development.
 The global community must learn to share and sustain resources for everybody,
not just the elite or privileged.
3. Do you see the SDGs and MDGs as interconnected? Should they be combined?
Responses:
 The SDGs are meant to be more detailed than MDGs.
 The MDGs are only a starting point for holistic development, each goal is meant
for people to dig deeper. For example- MDG 2 focuses on primary education,
but what about higher education? There is a need for full education that
incorporates human rights throughout each level of education, on all levels.
*Facilitator shares agreements from the session on technology and the student
movement and MDG & youth session participants agree with the same sentiments.
4. Have you already combined what you think should be SDGs and use them with the
MDGs in your work?
Responses:
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7.  No, the development agenda needs to have specific goals and targets that are
sustainable for each region. Most nations do not have clear goals and clear goals
when the SDGs are crafted will help.
 No, but plan to. In most nations, people focus on environmental development but
ignore human development.
5. What could some action oriented goals look like for the SDGs?
Responses:
 Focus goals fashioned from the Decade for the Education for Sustainable
Development and how educators in formal and non-formal settings can apply
these goals into their work. Goals should focus on what needs to be done instead
of what should not happen.
 Goals should be focused toward eradicating extreme poverty instead of focusing
on creating wealth.
 Goals should take into consideration current national agenda plans and
compliment them. For example, there is concern around nations in Africa like the
Nigeria 2020 vision, Kenya 2030 and Rwanda 2025 visions that are setting other
agendas that may not go well with the new international development strategies.
 Goals should consider world peace and interreligious cooperation as additional
means to achieve its aims.
Examples of ways to achieve goals:
 Earth Charter International was recently appointed as a UNESCO Chair for the
Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) and has recently opened a new
educational center to promote the Decade for Education for Sustainable
Development. The center seeks to empower and educate young people to use
the Earth Charter as their ethical framework towards building a more just,
peaceful and sustainable society. This initiative also serves as a solution to the
call for ESD integrated into formal, non-formal and informal education that came
from the Rio+20 outcome document.
 In Abuja, Nigeria, youth are using technology for development via the MDG radio
education program run by the Millennium Development Ambassadors.
6. What can we do as Human Rights Activists to promote the MDGs in our countries on
the grassroots level?
Responses:
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8.  Mobilize at local levels to help formulate community development goals and
share best practices on efforts that are working.
 Relate the issues to the local areas
 Promote local issues in the global community.
Resolutions on Topic:
1. There are still challenges around harmonizing formal, non-formal and informal
education because there is no clear global curriculum for MDG education.
2. Youth need platforms guidance, especially in developing world, to learn and
strategize about the MDGs.
3. It is necessary for civil society sectors and governments to work together with youth
to achieve the MDGs.
4. Volunteer movements and youth to youth contacts are important to exchange ideas
and experiences. The goals are to inspire youth, empower them, connect them to
resources as well as utilize and celebrate youth to motivate the best from them.
Session: Technology and the Global Student Movement
Language: English
Countries Represented: USA, Uganda, Pakistan
Percentages from polls:
100% were aware of a student movement in their country
100% believe that technology can be used to move their causes forward
90% of participants are not current students
Participants used the session to discuss individual experiences with student movement
activities, challenges and successes. The facilitated portion of the session challenged
participants with broader ideas on how to impact student education throughout the
human development span.
What impacts need to happen for Higher Ed?
Perspectives:
 Focus on K-12 with better curriculums that include parent-teacher collaborations
so that by the time the individual gets to Higher Education, the system for Higher
Ed does not have to try teaching basic skills.
 Greater emphasis on K-12 teachers and parents should be a priority. In the USA,
teachers are degraded and undervalued and parents seem not to care.
Participants were challenged that low income parents are identified in research
as too busy trying to make ends meet to help teachers give students a good
education. Instead, parents can tend to leave the academics portion of rearing
their children to teachers. Participants question if this is helpful and were left
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9. thinking: How can such a divide between over-exhausted parents and ill
equipped teachers be bridged to create a better environment for students?
Students are prepared for tests, but not for critical thinking.
 Governments, parents, students and other stakeholders need to make education
a better priority world-wide. Corruption must be tackled in order to deal with all
levels of education because a lot of funds are intentionally misappropriated.
How can we employ community building to create better learning environments
for students?
Perspectives:
 Encourage teachers with better benefits and rights
 Ensure that educational planning is a norm that includes the surrounding
community to identify the challenges faced and arrive at viable solutions through
collaboration on the educational infrastructure
 Create more education for parents, including helping adults become literate
parents need to also be held more accountable for their children
 Network within communities to create awareness and allies on student issues
How effective can technology be for movements when most of the world is either
not connected or has poor connection?
Perspectives:
 It is helpful for those that have the Internet to connect to others around the world
that do not so that they can share the skills learned.
 “Developed” nations should help build the capacity of “developing” nations since
most technologies that are far reaching benefit all nations. However, “developed”
countries must be careful to only nurture ideas on technology and not dictate to
other nations how to use them because it perpetuates superiority.
How to can expanding the reach of technology capacity building happen? Every
day citizens with the ability to provide capacity building would probably not be
able to travel overseas.
Perspectives:
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10.  Capacity building can be done on and offline. Creators of advanced technologies
should be traveling to do capacity building in person because they can afford it
(i.e. Google and Microsoft) and they travel anyway to expand their business.
 Online capacity building can fill in the gaps of off-line capacity building on the use
of technologies
 For places where Internet is not common place, a community can be made
through an expanded network that starts from a person well versed in technology
to teach through technology in presentations that can be replicated off-line. The
effect is to pass on the knowledge from one medium of communication to the
other, on the level each person is on to receive and process the information.
Participants discussed the link between human rights and sustainable development.
The overwhelming consensus was that both are interconnected, but the challenge
remains in how to move people out of their siloes for their side of the cause.
How can technology be used to further education in your country?
Perspectives:
 Pakistan: Use of technology can help in spreading education to rural areas
faster, so it must be used at all levels. Social media can help disseminate
information to people for strategic planning.
 Uganda: Education through technology would be helpful to connect students to
experiences of others abroad.
EXCHANGE session (participant-led topics of choice)
Language: Spanish
Countries Represented: Colombia, Mexico, Nicaragua
Are there technologies that are very useful in advancing your cause? What are
they and how they have been helpful to you?
Perspectives:
 Technologies are hard to come by in countries like Colombia because it is only
for people that have the economic ability to purchase. Many educational
institutions in 2012 still do not have Internet access.
 Across Latin American countries, technological resources are not accessible to
all social classes. The best way to advance the cause is through face to face
contact.
 Despite lack of Internet accessibility across social classes, citizens have a right
to information and access to the Internet spreads information faster.
 Virtual communications has exceeded the convenience of normal ways to get
information in Colombia
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11. What are challenges that you face in Latin America, either alone or in your
MDG work?
Perspectives:
 A main challenge is to break the gap of inequality over access to technologies,
especially technologies needed by people with disabilities. Technology usually is
designed for those without physical or cognitive limitations and overwhelmingly,
minority populations like people with disabilities are not taken into account as
technologies become more elaborate.
An example of better technology for people with disabilities is a participant’s
cellphone that allows hands-free dialing and other functions
 Another major challenge is the rise in Internet activism that attempts to raise
awareness but fails to reach people that are doing the work on the ground and
those that live in the communities affected by the issue. The result is that the
awareness raising becomes a fad to support the causes within the network of
Internet activists instead of a useful avenue to build strategic coordination of
concrete actions.
What are some challenges that technology experts should prioritize resolving?
Perspectives:
 Elaborate technologies without creating destructive environmental impacts.
Environmental destruction that results in technology design and enhancement
are rapidly killing off species.
 Provide full technology access to all countries in ways that do not rely upon the
country’s economic development. Access to technology should be based upon
how it will affect the quality of the environment as well as the human being,
including enhancing individual human rights.
 Create good practical use of the Internet by making it easier for young people to
exercise participatory citizenship without censorship.
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