Paramount to success, goals are necessary for achievement. To end extreme poverty by 2030, this is essential.

If you happen to be a new Global Citizen, then the first thing you should start familiarizing yourself with are the Millennium Development Goals. These are a group of 8 goals that were set by the 191 United Nations member states in 2000 designed to halve extreme poverty by 2015.

But what happens after 2015, you ask? Good question, and here is a brief part of the answer.

Negotiations are currently taking place at the United Nations to review the Millennium Development Goals and in 2015 set the new goals towards 2030, currently called “The Sustainable Development Goals.”  The goals are not finalized or agreed upon yet, but they are poised to succeed the Millennium Development Goals and be announced in September 2015.

Last week the group of countries that are negotiating these goals were meeting at the United Nations to discuss these goals and try to agree on what they should be.  At the moment there is a risk that these goals won’t be ambitious enough, with so many different countries wanting different things.

So, we delivered each of these negotiators individual Hero-themed postcards with a picture of their country's Ambassador to the United Nations on it urging them to be a Hero in 2015 by negotiating the most ambitious goals possible representative of the issues citizens are most concerned about.  Every country was also given an overview of the issues their citizens are concerned about from the My World survey.

The postcard captured the attention of the Guatemalan negotiator. She held up the postcard and said that her Ambassador is her personal hero and that “Heroes make tough choices.”

One of the Co-Chairs of the group, Ambassador Kamau of the Kenyan Mission to the UN, mentioned that he declined to call himself a hero for a very specific reason: "We are nowhere near getting the job done."

We agree. There are not any heroes in these talks yet, but we are urging all Ambassadors to the United Nations involved in these negotiations to work together and be true heroes in 2015 by setting and agreeing on a series of goals that are ambitious and represent the interests of citizens around the world.

Join the movement toward poverty eradication by signing the Zero Poverty 2030 petition.