Vote The Change You Want To See In The World

As my time of between jobs comes to a close this weekend, I'm preparing for my exciting new role starting on Monday. I've tried to use the last two weeks (fairly) productively. As well as some market research visiting other historic houses and emptying my inbox of the backlog that had built up, I've been working on my communications role as a WAGGGS Post-2015 Ambassador.

The centre of this is the MyWorld survey - the main platform from the UN Millennium Campaign that aims to let every single person in the world have their say in choosing the top priorities for international development after 2015. I've mentioned it several times before so, if you haven't already, you really should vote now. And don't be thinking that just because you live in the UK or some other relatively wealthy nation you shouldn't vote!

What does the world you want look like?

My belief is that one of the problems with the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs - the current international development targets that expire in 2015) is that they read as though countries like the UK are already the pinnacled of development, that we've got no more progress to make, and that our only role in development is to hand out aid to other deserving nations for them to move towards being just like us.

This is flawed. The UK is actually one country that won't meet all the targets of the MDGs by the deadline. But nobody is holding the UK to account by asking what is going to be done in the next 2 years to ensure equal representation of women in parliament because, from a UK viewpoint, the MDGs were seen as a way to help other, less fortunate people in other parts of the world. The UK isn't perfect, we need to develop to. That's why we need a new set of goals, with buy in from as many people in as many countries as possible around the world.

The MyWorld survey data is disaggregated by country and a couple of other factors, so decision makers will be able to see the different priorities for development in different countries.

So think about what you want to see change in the world. Then vote.