It is clear based on the article, "Education Counts Toward the Millennium Development Goals" that education is integral to the success of not only the second Millennium Development Goal, but also underlies the success of each of the other goals. By educating, especially women and girls, poverty would decrease, maternal mortality would decrease and reproductive health would increase, amongst many other global health pursuits. 

The importance of education and its effects on global health are very clear to me. In Senegal, each of the sisters who I lived with in my home-stay had never gone to school and had only ever learned about the Koran from their mother. Although their father was a professor, he did not see any reason to send his daughters to school, because they are females. As a result, all three spend every single day at home cooking and cleaning; one even had an extremely risky pregnancy while I was there. Their future prospects and health seemed limited and depressing. Each accepted their fate; when I asked them what they wanted to do besides cook and clean, they just sort of giggled and looked down, without answering the question. With education, these girls could have gotten jobs, controlled their own reproductive health, and in the end lived healthier lives.

The second Millennium Development Goal seeks to achieve universal primary education and the third Millennium Development Goal seeks gender parity in primary education. These pursuits focus on education globally- an ambitious task. Additionally, the article "Education Counts Toward the Millennium Development Goals" clearly outlines the importance of education in every facet of global health, and that increasing access to education will have positive and far-reaching benefits in every sector, but does not explain or outline any policies addressing how MDG 2 will be implemented. Contrastingly, the State-by-State article, "Examples of Successful Community-Based Public Health Interventions" is clear as to what changes are being made and where they are being made specifically (even county and city breakdowns are included).

How can this goal be applied globally? Is it better to outline policies for education globally or by specific region? Should MDG 2 be tailored in individual policies for countries of differing educational status and culture?