No target met unless met for all

MS International Federation’s top priority, alongside research, is to support the development of MS organisations in developing and emerging countries so they can support people affected by MS, wherever they live.

To help us do this, we need governments to ensure that their national priorities and targets for health, education, infrastructure meet the needs of people affected by MS by ensuring they meet the needs of all social and economic groups.

That’s why the MS International Federation has joined hundreds of other organisations in signing the Global Civil Society Statement, ‘No target met unless met for all’. This calls on the UN Secretary General to include a commitment in his report on the Post-2015 Sustainable Development Agenda that no target should be considered met unless it is met for all social and economic groups – including people affected by disabilities, including people affected by MS.

The new framework of sustainable development goals will replace the Millennium Development Goals which come to an end in 2015. These new goals will be relevant for all countries and will measure a much broader set of factors than the Millennium Development Goals. This shift recognises:

• the interconnectedness of our economies and societies
• our dependence on a stable and productive environment and
• the importance of greater co-operation and common frameworks for action to tackle the complex risks we are all facing together.

Ceri Angood Napier, MS International Federation’s Director of Programmes, said: “As a global MS movement, we stand together with people affected by MS, wherever they live in the world. We want to see that benefits reach everyone – not just those with more access to resources and power.”