Millennium Development Goals
With only five years left until the 2015 deadline to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), world leaders are meeting at a summit in New York (20-22 September) to accelerate progress towards the MDGs.
The Millennium Declaration in 2000 was a milestone in international cooperation, inspiring development efforts that have improved the lives of hundreds of millions of people around the world. Ten years later, world leaders will gather again at the United Nations in New York to review progress, assess obstacles and gaps, and agree on concrete strategies and actions to meet the eight Millennium Development Goals by 2015.
The Millennium Declaration represents the most important promise ever made to the world’s most vulnerable people.
The main 8 goals are:
1. Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger;
2. Achieve universal primary education;
3. Promote gender equality and empower women;
4. Reduce child mortality;
5. Improve maternal health;
6. Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases;
7. Ensure environmental sustainability;
8. Develop a global partnership for development.
Among primary targets are:
Halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people whose income is less than $1 a day;
Achieve, full and productive employment and decent work for all, including women and young people;
Ensure that, by 2015, children everywhere, boys and girls alike, will be able to complete a full course of primary schooling;
Reduce by two thirds, between 1990 and 2015, the under-five mortality rate;
Halve, by 2015, the proportion of the population without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation;
Address the special needs of the least developed countries, landlocked countries and small island developing states;
Develop further an open, rule-based, predictable, non-discriminatory trading and financial system;
and others.
More information:
www.un.org
www.worldbank.org
