Nearly 100 Chinese and foreign participants gathered in Beijing on Thursday to discuss new methods of education and training in a bid to attain the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

The conference, with the theme of promoting the role of education and training in attaining MDGs, drew representatives from the UN, academia and non-government organizations (NGOs) from Asian, African and Latin American countries.

Addressing the conference, Wang Zhongyu, president of the China Economic and Social Council (CESC), said the MDGs embodied the aspirations of people towards an improved life and the common wish to promote world peace, stability and realizing mutual benefits for all.

Only by uniting with each other could countries throughout the world build a harmonious society with sustained development and common prosperity, he said.

Wang, also vice chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, proposed that countries take effective measures to strengthen the UN's role in promoting international cooperation on development and making full use of the leading role played by the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC).

He also suggested the establishment of a "fair, reasonable and efficient" framework to evaluate the progress of attaining MDGs recognition. Wang called for NGOs and others involved in education throughout the world to improve levels of cooperation.

Wang said it was crucial to carry out joint training programs with higher institutions and NGOs. "Under the new circumstances we need to find ways and mechanisms to promote how MDGs status can be attained," he said..

Many participants hold that the development of appropriate educational courses is a strategic way of achieving MDGs status. It's been suggested that countries should adjust their educational systems and modernize training methods.

Initiated during the UN Millennium Summit in 2000, the MDGs include reducing by half the proportion of people suffering from poverty and hunger, achieving universal primary education, eliminating gender disparity, reducing child mortality by two thirds and maternal mortality by three quarters, halting and reversing the incidence of major diseases and reducing by half the proportion of people without access to safe drinking water.

(Xinhua News Agency March 17, 2006)