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The United Nations has published its third annual report detailing joint UN/EU achievements. The report covers 2007 with a focus on human rights and the Millennium Development Goals.  

Titled “Improving Lives”, the report coincides with the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and describes the partnership’s endeavor to help countries build the necessary capacities, structures and knowledge to enable people to exercise their rights and achieve the Millennium Development Goals.

In 2007, the UN and the Commission have worked together in over 100 countries around the world. The report captures an impressive array of results achieved under the leadership of these countries. For instance, it shows that the United Nations-European Commission have helped to:

•    Provide food assistance for  48 million people in developing countries, including 26 million children;
•    Register 80 million voters in 11 countries in Africa, Asia and Central America;
•    Clear 50 million square meters of land from mines, thus granting access to productive land and social infrastructure to 2 million people;
•    Provide education opportunities in post-crisis countries such as Iraq, where 9 million text books were delivered to 6 million children;
•    Support the fight against polio in 27 countries through the administration of 2.3 billion doses of oral polio vaccines to 400 million children under the age of five;
•    Support agriculture and rural development, for instance by purchasing 150,000 metric tons of food aid on local markets in 21 African, Asian and Latin American countries.

Human rights and the Millennium Development Goals have the common objective of promoting human dignity and well-being for all.