zulfikar: hello and welcome to global 3000. back in the year 2000, the united nations held an historic millennium summit. the member states and other international organizations joined to committ to help achieve eight millennium development goals by 2015. so, we're asking where are we at with the mdgs? and here's what else we've got coming up. saving the scavengers. africa fights for the lives of its vultures. university boom. ethiopia sets itself ambitious goals.

and, välkommen! sweden offers a home to child refugees. vultures are exactly that -- vultures. the birds of prey feed on animal carcasses but they also fulfil an important function in their ecosystems. in many parts of the world, vultures are threatened with extinction. in india, their numbers have droppped by more than 90 percent, because cattle carcasses contain traces of the anti-inflammatory drug diclofenac. the drug is given to the cattle shortly before they die to reduce their pain. but it can cause fatal kidney failure in several species of vulture, and by the time this was discovered in india, almost all were wiped out on the subcontinent. now vultures in africa are dying as well. the cause isn't diclofenac but, among other things, a demand for ivory in southeast asia and china. poachers know that where scavengers circle the sky above, an animal carcass lies down

below, and that's bad for business. >> when she needs to buy ingredients for her remedies, philly mothlasedi doesn't go to a pharmacy, she goes to a muti, or traditional medicine market in johannesburg. here she can find everything a sangoma, a traditional south african healer, needs. it's a thriving business, but sadly also costs the lives of many endangered animals. vultures are one prominent example. a bird like this costs the equivalent of 200 euros at the market. >> they use mostly the eyes, the eyes and the head for clairvoyancy. that's what they say. because it can see from a distance. so if you administer it with other medicines, your herbs, and

then you smell the smoke as it burns, it comes into your head and your eyes and then naturally you are able to foresee things. the healer says that sangomas actually aren't allowed to kill animals for their medicine, but the demand is too great. >> so every year hundreds of vultures end up at markets like this one. the consequences for the vulture population are disastrous. in the past thirty years, their numbers in africa have dropped by up to 80%. andré botha manages the endangered wildlife trust's birds of prey program, which is trying to save africa's vultures. vultures are the continent's waste disposal service. as scavengers, they feed on carrion, which hinders the spread of disease. botha says that these days their greatest enemy is poison.

it's easily available and inexpensive. >> what you see there is how quick and easy it is to lure birds in to come and feed. and that's unfortunately what a poacher does in the same way. the only difference is they put out poisoned bait. they kill the birds and they then go and sell them for money. >> africa's large savannas are closed ecosystems. each animal species has a specific place in it. but time and again, the rise in poaching incidents throws the system out of equilibrium. every 15 minutes, an elephant is killed by poachers in africa, by means of firearms or poison. game wardens found this dead elephant in a remote stream. andré botha suspects it died a natural death, since its tusks haven't been removed. to make things easier for the

vultures to get at the massive feast, he lends a helping hand. >> what we're doing is trying to open up this elephant. it's got a very thick skin, about this thick, and unless there are predators that can open up this or we come and help, the vultures basically can't benefit from these three tons of meat lying here. >> vultures can locate a dead pachyderm in less than 30 minutes, so they pose a threat to poachers. >> the birds will come down in large numbers, up to 400 vultures will come and feed on it over a number of days. unfortunately in certain parts of southern africa poachers have taken to poisoning carcasses like this, and what they do is eradicate the vultures from a particular area to mask their activities so that rangers can't pick up on what they're doing. >> protecting vultures is difficult.

the birds can fly long distances -- up to 400 kilometres in a single day. if they die, it often has consequences far beyond a country's borders. survivors often end up with brian jones. he has a rehabilitation centre for injured wildlife. a lot of vultures are also killed or crippled when they fly into power lines. here they're nursed back to health and, if possible, set free again, into what jones fears is a very uncertain future. >> 75% don't even last one year when they've left the nest to survive. that's the average research done around the world with raptors and birds of prey. so how in the world are you going to recover, when last year we had something like two thousand vultures poisoned? how do you recover them, you understand, and every year is getting worse and worse. it is a crisis that soon we'll have no more vultures in the sky. >> education is a very important part of his work.

groups of teenagers are given the chance to come into contact with the birds and learn how important vultures are for africa's ecological equilibrium. learning about the the behaviour of vultures is no less important. they're currently being studied by a group of researchers. but first they have to catch one. and that takes plenty of patience. and an ability to sprint at the right moment. >> we capture these birds and

then we fit these wing tags to them, we ring them and also in some cases we harness them to follow their movement, to track where they go to, where they find food within their range across southern africa and that enables us to get an idea of the areas where they potentially could be exposed to threats. >> andré botha's aim is to eliminate those threats as well as he can, so that there will still be a place for vultures in the skies over southern africa. zulfikar: in about two weeks time, heads of state and government will convene at the united nations in new york to hammer out a successor framework to the millennium development goals. it's been 15 years since the world community set eight global targets to be reached by this year. the number one goal was to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger. but giving everyone access to education was also high on the

list. here's a progress report on what's been done to achieve this important goal. >> one of the goals was to supply universal primary school education by 2015. in 2000, 100 million children were still not enrolled in a primary school. by 2015, that number had fallen to 57 million, but the target still hasn't been reached. the percentage of children in secondary schools rose from 53 % to 66%. promoting gender equality was also one of the millennium development goals. while 80% of girls were enrolled in primary schools in 2000, that number rose to 88%.

but there are regional variations. in sub-saharan africa, only 78% of girls have access to primary school education. zulfikar: education is certainly key to development. economic growth needs skills in the workforce. that's the view taken by german industry and it's central to the current debates on immigration here. to narrow the global wealth gap, economically weak countries need more university graduates. seeing the need to increase education opportunities in the country, about ten years ago ethiopia decided to build several new universities. a third of the country's budget goes into its education initiative. here's a look at ethiopia's new universities and whether the money is being well invested. >> in a few years these medical students will be the first graduates of newly-built debre birhan university. two hours's drive from the ethiopian capital, addis ababa, debre birhan is one of 23 new universities that have been built in ethiopia since 2007.

this young doctor was happy to be able to attend a university in his home town. >> i'm from around this town, so i need to be near my family, and it was nice to choose this university. >> ethiopia's government set itself an ambitious goal -- to double the number of university graduates within five years. the scheme was funded mainly with money from its own coffers. but a question remains -- are the students really getting a good education? >> as a medical student, we have some gaps in the laboratory equipment and books, but we need camps year to year, the gaps are filled time by time. >> lectures in debre birhan

began in 2007, when many of the buildings were still under construction. eight years later, they're finished, although signs indicate that some areas are already in need of repair. in addition to inadequate buildings, there's a shortage of trained teaching staff. only 8% of the lecturers have their doctorates. many of them are receiving further training, but their changes under 30. -- average age is under 30. they lack experience to pass on to the students. the dean of the medical faculty says ethiopia simply doesn't have enough academics. he himself is only 28 years old. >> there is a lack of specialists at country level. the other thing, as a result of lack of infrastructure and lack of teaching hospitals, specialists were not interested

to be instructors in debre birhan university. with the help of five-year plans and government investment, ethiopia wants to become a middle-income country by 2025. but for that, it needs more trained skilled workers. the education minister says that in future, industry, not farming, must be the linchpin of the economy. >> when we reach lower middle income country, the industry will be leading the economy. by then, more science graduates are required rather than social science graduates. >> 1.3 billion euros a quarter of the entire budget is being invested in higher education. ethopia, and not donor countries, is providing most of the money. its politicians say it's an investment in the future.

>> most of the donors are focusing on basic education, but for a country like ours and other developing countries, the focus on tertiary education is also very important if the country has to develop. >> despite that, the country's opposition says the money isn't being invested properly. beyene petros is leader of the opposition and he himself taught at the university of addis ababa for forty years. he sees major problems in ethiopia's education system. >> from the outside it looks like a very responsible kind of thing to do but this is wastage. this country cannot afford to waste limited resources in the name of expanding, which is politically driven. populist. >> petros says constructing universities is not an investment in the future, but

more than anything, a job creation scheme to satisfy the remote unstable provinces. >> my proposal would be consolidation, that is, to add quality to these institutions. we have to create some centers of excellence. not every so-called university should open to every aspect of education. >> youth unemployment in ethiopia lies at an estimated 50%. percent. !!!!!!!!!! so it's questionable whether a growing number of university graduates can find work. but the government is optimistic. it believes the education initiative will soon create growth and jobs. zulfikar: well, how about the millennium kids? the kids born in 2000. how are they doing? we've been talking to 15 year olds around the world -- about their dreams and fears -- and what they see as our greatest challenges for the future. this is how shaweny from brazil

sees her world. >> i love dancing. i'm crazy about it. i've been dancing the passinho since i was six years old. my name is shaweny, i'm 15 and live northern rio de janeiro. this is my darling brother, and

my wonderful little sister. this is my adopted brother, a great guy. at the moment my mother's unemployed. that's actually good for me, because i get to see her more often. before, there was more distance between us. i'd come home and she'd be asleep. she'd come home and i'd be asleep. we'd grown apart a little. it might sound absurd, but i'd like to be a pilot. not many people don't believe me at first -- a dancer going into aviation? but my mother wants me to get a good education, and so do i.

the wars between the favelas, muggings, people who kill other people. that's really awful for everyone. a lot of children here grow up exposed to drug dealing and become dealers themselves. that's tragic for all brazilians. i think they could do something better with their lives. look, this is how you do the passinho. zulfikar: in the past few weeks and months, 120 thousand refugees and migrants have arrived in just three european countries.

italy, hungary and greece. the european commission has drawn up a quota system, and the refugees will now be distributed fairly among other eu nations. over 50% of the 120,000 refugees will go to germany, france and spain. others will be distributed across the rest of europe. while a number of eastern european countries have been against accepting any refugees, sweden seems more welcoming. it's the highest per capita recipient of refugees in europe. we been to a small town in sweden to see how welcoming young refugees is helping them tackle the problem of a shrinking population. >> 13-year-old mawlid has been told that everyone in sweden fishes. that's why he wants to learn how to do it as soon as possible. he fled ethiopia all on his own, without relatives and without friends. and he ended up deep in the

swedish countryside, in skellefteå. 14-year-old ali from afghanistan has also found a place to stay here. he, too, set off on his own. first for iran, but he didn't stay there long. >> in iran it soon became clear to me that i had to go to europe. i'd heard so many good things about sweden, that sweden was a good place to live. that's why i decided to come here. ali doesn't want to talk about who paid for his trip or why he left home, but it wouldn't have been possible without the support of his family. mawlid arrived in may. he fled the misery in his country and the daily violence inflicted on women and children in particular. his flight was a journey that lasted for months, and he wants to put it behind him.

>> in one hour i take six fish from here. >> he may have caught six fish last time, but today he's not having much luck. >> we try to spend time with the kids in small groups. right now we have seven educators working with seven teenagers and it's necessary. that's because many of the young refugees have had appalling experiences. but one-to-one coaching takes a lot of time and effort. skellefteå is a typical swedish provincial town with typical problems. the young people move away, to stockholm or gothenburg. the elderly remain. but skellefteå wants to grow again. municipal authorities see refugees as the solution, especially very young ones who arrive alone, and who integrate most easily into swedish society once they've put down roots.

>> taking in refugees, especially unaccompanied, underage refugees, is part of our municipal strategy to increase our population. >> as early as the 1980s, skellefteå was encouraging young refugees. meron tesfay works at the town hall's switchboard. he came to sweden on his own at the age of fourteen. that's ten years ago. his parents wanted to spare him the years of compulsory military service he faced in his home country, they wanted him to build a better life for himself. the hope was that at some point he could bring the rest of his family here. meron hasn't yet managed to do that, but he has found a new home in skellefteå. >> i'm glad i was able to flee back then. and i'm grateful that my family sent me here when i was so

young. i've been accepted into this society. >> meron benefited from the intensive guidance he received. he speaks swedish perfectly. he and his co-workers work well together. but despite how things are going, meron is still somewhat traumatized by his past. he' still in touch with his family, he tells us. but then he's overwhelmed by memories and emotion. swedish authorities are expecting 12,000 underage refugees this year. 148 are currently living in

skellefteå, but more arrive every day. that's why the social services are planning new accommodations. nine sets of living quarters are to be opened this month alone. social education worker andreas eriksson is spending more time at planning conferences than ever before. during the evening he explains the programs on swedish television to mawlid and ali. that's also part of round-the-clock care for boys who have seen until now more than their share of suffering and misery. mawlid then shows us his small realm, his room, a place he can retreat to and his first successes in the new school. he shows us a picture he painted of his old country's flag. and the flag of his new one,

sweden. but these lines he wrote in english class are also important to him. he shows us his name, and a sentence telling his mother he loves her, and then the names of his siblings. mawlid is a devout muslim. it's important to him to practise his religion. he wants to build a new life here, study and become a proper swede. but he'll always carry his origins, his history and his family with him all his life. zulfikar: well, that's about all sure to join us again next time. and if you'd like to find out more about today's stories, check out our website at dw.com/global3000. until next time, take care. bye, now.

steves: from the destruction of world war ii, europe has steadily rebuilt itself into a forward-looking

and united continent. with the creation of the european union, economic integration has made another devastating war unthinkable. there has been a massive investment in cutting-edge infrastructure projects. efficient high-speed rail systems tie europe together. superhighways and stunning bridges further enhance the continent-wide transportation system. within cities, sleek subways move millions underground. on the streets above, public transit reduces traffic congestion. and nearly every city is creating traffic-free pedestrian zones, making urban life even more people-friendly. as the world grapples with climate change,

europe is taking a leading role in developing alternative energy sources. and while still preserving the historic character of its cities, europe has found a way to integrate innovative architecture into the landscape, giving the old world a modern face. and the human face of contemporary europe is more diverse and vibrant than ever. even as this continent of 500 million people unites, it's finding ways to allow its rich mix of cultures to celebrate their unique identities. from norway to greece and from portugal to bulgaria, people are proud to preserve their distinct languages, foods, and traditions.

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