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Killing Poverty
Mercy Oyoo is HIV positive. With four children aged from two to 14 years old, she lives in one room in Kibera, Nairobi - Kenya's largest slum. Mercy used to sell chips by the roadside to support her family, but now she has tuberculosis, and is too weak to work.
In 2002 Kenya's new government headed by President Kibaki swept to power on a wave of popular jubilation promising to end the corruption endemic in Kenyan lives - and improve the lives of millions of families like Mercy's living in extreme poverty. But three years later, little had changed. This Life programme follows the daily battles with corrupt officials Mercy and her family must endure to survive, and interviews ministers and anti-corruption officials who suggest that the Government needs more international aid to help it stamp out corruption and so meet its Millennium Development Goals promises.
Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and Deputy Environment Minister Wangari Maathai, tortured under the former Kenyan regime, says Western governments need to face up to their own responsibilities for shoring up corrupt governments. But Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Millennium Project, claims corruption is "not the overwhelming obstacle that it's sometimes seen to be. If we think practically about how to target aid, and make the aid accountable, we can help address the underlying factors of extreme poverty."
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Partners
'The MDGs in Focus' was made in association with:
The Royal Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs
For more information on the Millennium Campaign