The Millenium Development Goals (MDGs)
The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were developed out of the eight chapters of the United Nations Millennium Declaration, signed in September 2000. They form a blueprint agreed to by all the world’s
countries and all the world’s leading development institutions. They have galvanized unprecedented efforts to meet the needs of the world’s poorest. The eight goals and 21 targets include:
1. Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
Halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people whose income is less than one dollar a day.
Achieve full and productive employment and decent work for all, including women and young people.
Halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people who suffer from hunger.
2. Achieve universal primary education
Ensure that, by 2015, children everywhere, boys and girls alike, will be able to complete a full course of primary schooling.
3. Promote gender equality and empower women
Eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education preferably by 2005, and at all levels by 2015.
4. Reduce child mortality
Reduce by two-thirds, between 1990 and 2015, the under-five mortality rate.
5. Improve maternal health
Reduce by three quarters, between 1990 and 2015, the maternal mortality ratio.
Achieve, by 2015, universal access to reproductive health.
6. Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases
Have halted by 2015 and begun to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS.
Achieve, by 2010, universal access to treatment for HIV/AIDS for all those who need it
Have halted by 2015 and begun to reverse the incidence of malaria and other major diseases
7.Ensure environmental sustainability
Integrate the principles of sustainable development into country policies and programmes; reverse loss of environmental resources.
Reduce biodiversity loss, achieving, by 2010, a significant reduction in the rate of loss
Halve, by 2015, the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation (for more information see the entry on water supply)
By 2020, to have achieved a significant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum-dwellers.
8.Develop a global partnership for development
Develop further an open trading and financial system that is rule-based, predictable and non-discriminatory. Includes a commitment to good governance, development and poverty reduction -nationally and internationally.Address the special needs of the least developed countries. This includes tariff and quota free access for their exports; enhanced programme of debt relief for heavily indebted poor countries; and cancellation of official bilateral debt; and more generous official development assistance for countries committed to poverty reduction.
Address the special needs of landlocked and small island developing States.Deal comprehensively with the debt problems of developing countries through national and international measures in order to make debt sustainable in the long term.
In cooperation with developing countries, develop and implement strategies for decent and productive work for youth.
In cooperation with pharmaceutical companies, provide access to affordable essential drugs in developing countries.
In cooperation with the private sector, make available the benefits of new technologies, especially information and communications.
Key resources
The eight Millennium Development Goals have been adopted by the
international community as a framework for the development activities of over 190 countries in ten regions; they have been articulated into over 20 targets and over 60 indicators. This Report summarizes progress towardsthe goals in each of the region.
Report launched at the opening of the Economic and Social Council's (ECOSOC) 2007 substantive session in Geneva on Monday 2 July.
The Millennium Declaration established 2015 as the target date for achieving most of the MDGs, with 1990 generally used as a baseline. The Chart shows progress as of June 2007, based on data for selected indicators in each of the eight Goals. The assessment is based on an analysis of trends between 1990 and the latest year for which data are available. Given the time lag between collecting data and analysing them, the latest information available for some of the indicators is from 2004 or 2005.
MDGInfo
This database system is designed for the compilation and presentation of development indicators to support data users in their MDG monitoring. The MDG goals and targets are imbedded in the system linked to the 48 MDG indicators in a goal monitoring framework.
MDGInfo has been adapted from DevInfo and presents the most up to date country-level statistics available as of August 2007 for the global monitoring of progress achieved towards the MDGs since 1990.
Click here for the online version of MDGInfo 2007, register for free and access it
Africa and the Millennium Development Goals - 2007 Update
This newly published brief notes that at the midway point between the adoption of the Millennium Development Goals in 2000 and the 2015 target date to achieve them, sub-Saharan Africa is not on track to achieve any of the Goals.
Although there have been major gains in several areas and the Goals remain achievable in most African nations, even the best governed countries on the continent have not been able to make sufficient progress in reducing extreme poverty in its many forms, some of which are outlined in the brief.
The brief includes excerpts of statistical analysis and charts from the Millennium Development Goals Report 2007 and is based on the most up-to-date and comprehensive statistics available on global and regional MDG progress.
UN Millennium Development Goals website
http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/
Millennium Development Goals Indicators – The Official United Nations site for the MDG indicators
http://mdgs.un.org/unsd/mdg/
UN Millennium Project
http://www.unmillenniumproject.org/