UNITED NATIONS, April 30 (UPI) -- The U.N. Commission on Sustainable Development said Friday nations must speed up work now to reach 2015 goals on water, sanitation and shelter.
"The international community is not on track and efforts must be scaled up," said Norway's Environment Minister Borge Brende, chairman of 12th session of the U.N. Commission on Sustainable Development. "Achieving the targets is doable."
He said, "The time-bound targets are specific, practical and realistic. They are technically feasible and financially affordable. For too many years we have had too little action."
The agreed Millennium Development Goals want governments worldwide to provide 1.6 billion people with safe drinking water and 2 billion people with basic sanitation by 2015. By 2020, the living conditions of 100 million slum dwellers would have to be substantially improved.
"Let us all embark on a decade of implementation," Brende said.
The Commission was the first substantive review of the progress made to reach targets set at the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, South Africa. The targets include many of the U.N. Millennium Development Goals set in 2000.
