At the 2005 World Summit, Governments of all nations agreed that “progress for women is progress for all”. Yet the 10-year review of the implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action revealed a serious gap between policy and practice in many countries. A lack of political will is reflected in the most telling way of all: lack of resources and insufficient budgetary allocations. That is why the theme of this International Women’s Day is “Investing in Women and Girls”.

This failure of funding undermines not only our endeavours for gender equality and women’s empowerment as such; it also holds back our efforts to reach all the Millennium Development Goals. As we know from long and indisputable experience, investing in women and girls has a multiplier effect on productivity and sustained economic growth. No measure is more important in advancing education and health, including the prevention of HIV/AIDS. No other policy is as likely to improve nutrition, or reduce infant and maternal mortality.

International agency Oxfam welcomed the UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon's 'Call to Action' to end world poverty made at the World Economic Forum in Davos, but warned that concrete proposals must emerge at the UN meeting in New York in September this year to turn the rhetoric into reality.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, rock star Bono, Nigerian President Umaru Yar'Adua and Queen Rania Al Abdullah of Jordan joined Ban in a joint call for urgent action to achieve the Millennium Development Goals by 2015, progress on which is sorely lacking in most areas. A number of companies also supported the call. Barbara Stocking, director of Oxfam GB, who is attending the meeting, said: "There is no reason and no excuse for the enduring and obscene levels of poverty in the world. Concerted action from political leaders in response to the demands of global citizens could overturn this inequity.

With just three days left to the conference closes, Oxfam blitzed delegates at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Bali, with a special photographic exhibition and calendar called “It’s up to UNow”.

The photos, are messages from people in developing countries, who are already having to adapt and live with the impacts of climate change, as well as people from rich countries, who are taking personal action to reduce their contribution to climate change. Take a look at all of the photo messages on our Flickr profile.

Today, they are coming together to send a clear message to delegates at this conference, to do all they can to ensure that the interests of people living in poverty are put at the heart of any decisions and outcomes from Bali.

A recent article in the African publication Mail & Guardian called the tone of Eveline Herfkens, Executive Coordinator for the United Nations Millennium Campaign, 'refreshingly direct.’ The paper interviewed Herfkens for an assessment on the Millennium Development Goals at its midway point. Some real progress has been made, but many countries are lagging behind to meet the 2015 deadline.

While governments are not living up to their promises, the UN keeps getting the blame for poor progress on achieving the Goals.

“The degree to which commitments are kept depends largely on people outside of the UN system. We don’t have a police force which we can send over to make sure member states keep their promises,” Herfkens said.

The UN’s annual MDG monitoring report was released today.

This year’s stocktaking report is especially significant since 2007 is “halftime” for the MDGs, midway between the agreement to the Millennium Declaration by 189 nations in 2000, and the 2015 deadline for MDG achievement.

While it is true that no one Goal is projected to be on track across all regions, and progress in sub-Saharan Africa needs to accelerate across the board to meet the 2015 targets, I want to point out some very impressive indicators of progress, particularly since 2000.

Progress is being made in virtually all the Goals across all regions.  Even more significant is that the post-2000 period has seen major gains, indicating that the MDG compact has sparked a seriousness of effort that is bearing fruit.  In many cases, progress between 2000 and 2005 was greater than progress in the whole of the 1990s, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa.