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World Leaders are gathering in New York this week to discuss the United Nations Millennium Development Goals—a set of objectives that range from cutting child and maternal mortality to halving the number of people who go hungry by 2015.
    But at a recent gathering in Nigeria of journalists and scientists from more than a dozen African countries, participants lamented the lack of importance that technology and science have played in achieving these goals.
    Dr Umar Bindir, the director general of Nigeria’ s National Office for Technology Acquisition and Promotion, spoke about the role science should play in development at the First Regional Workshop of the Science Journalism Cooperation. Bindir stressed that of the eight MDGs that have been laid out, the most essential is to halve poverty. But he added that a lack of available statistics makes it extremely difficult.
    In Nigeria, where the conference was held, more than $6 billion has been spent on MDGs in the past four years, but 70 percent of the population still lives in poverty.
    UNICEF adviser for water, hygiene and sanitation in West and Central Africa, Chris Cormency, said Senegal is one country that has used technology to make some of these improvements.