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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

MDG Report 2009

This report presents an annual assessment of progress towards the MDGs. Although data are not yet available to reveal the full impact of the recent economic downturn, they point to areas where progress towards the eight goals has slowed or reversed.

MDG Progress Chart 2009

This chart presents an assessment of progress towards selected key targets  on  the  basis  of  information  available  as  of  June  2009. Depending  on  the  indicator,  the  latest available information could date back to as early as 2005 or as late as 2009.  

MDG Report 2008

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.

MDG Progress Chart 2008

The  Declaration  established  2015  as  the  target  date  for achievement  of  most  of  its  quantifiable commitments.  Half the period to this target date has now passed. This chart provides an assessment of progress towards a number of the key targets relating to each Goal. Trends are assessed on the basis of data between 1990 and the most recent year for which information was available as of June 2008, when this chart was prepared. 

MDG Report 2007

Report launched at the opening of the Economic and Social Council's (ECOSOC) 2007 substantive session in Geneva on Monday 2 July.

MDG Progress Chart 2007

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.

MDG progress by country (Eastern and Southern Africa)

NOTE: The MDG data presented in the table above is the latest available from the United Nations Statistics Division. The World Bank has recently released new poverty estimates, which reflect improvements in internationally comparable price data. The new data estimates set a new poverty line of US$1.25 a day and offer a much more accurate picture of the cost of living in developing countries. They are based on the results of the 2005 International Comparison Program (ICP), released in first half of 2008. Country-specific poverty estimates will be released by the World Bank in late 2008

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/

MDG Monitor
www.mdgmonitor.org