The Millennium Development Goals

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) represent the clearest indication to date of a global consensus on the need to end extreme poverty. The goals include specific measurable targets for their achievement. It is essential that Churches support this consensus and work energetically with governments, UN agencies and other non-governmental organizations, at all levels, in the implementation and monitoring of these goals.

The MDGs were introduced in the report of the Secretary-General, entitled: “Road map towards the implementation of the United Nations Millennium Declaration” (http://www.un.org/millennium/declaration/ares552e.htm ) presented to the fifty-sixth session of the General Assemble in 2001 -- a follow-up to the outcome of the Millennium Summit ( http://www.un.org/millennium/summit.htm) .

The goals were the outcome of consultations among members of the United Nations Secretariat and representatives of IMF, OECD and the World Bank, using section III of the United Nations Millennium Declaration, “Development and poverty eradication” as the main reference document.

For each goal one or more targets have been set, most for 2015, using 1990 as a benchmark:

1. Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
   Target for 2015: Halve the proportion of people living on less than a dollar a day and those who suffer from hunger.
   
   More than a billion people still live on less than US$1 a day: sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, and parts of Europe and Central Asia are falling short of the poverty target.
   
   
2. Achieve universal primary education
   Target for 2015: Ensure that all boys and girls complete primary school.
   
   As many as 113 million children do not attend school, but the target is within reach. India, for example, should have 95 percent of its children in school by 2005.
   
   
3. Promote gender equality and empower women
   Targets for 2005 and 2015: Eliminate gender disparities in primary and secondary education preferably by 2005, and at all levels by 2015.
   
   Two-thirds of illiterates are women, and the rate of employment among women is two-thirds that of men. The proportion of seats in parliaments held by women is increasing, reaching about one third in Argentina, Mozambique and South Africa.
   
   
4. Reduce child mortality
   Target for 2015: Reduce by two thirds the mortality rate among children under five
   
   Every year nearly 11 million young children die before their fifth birthday, mainly from preventable illnesses, but that number is down from 15 million in 1980.
   
   
5. Improve maternal health
   Target for 2015: Reduce by three-quarters the ratio of women dying in childbirth.
   
   In the developing world, the risk of dying in childbirth is one in 48, but virtually all countries now have safe motherhood programmes.
   
   
6. Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases
   Target for 2015: Halt and begin to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS and the incidence of malaria and other major diseases.
   
   Forty million people are living with HIV, including five million newly infected in 2003. Countries like Brazil, Senegal, Thailand and Uganda have shown that the spread of HIV can be stemmed.
   
   
7. Ensure environmental sustainability
   Targets:
   • Integrate the principles of sustainable development into country policies and programmes and reverse the loss of environmental resources.
   • By 2015, reduce by half the proportion of people without access to safe drinking water.
   • By 2020 achieve significant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers.

   More than one billion people lack access to safe drinking water and more than two billion lack sanitation. During the 1990s, however, nearly one billion people gained access to safe water and the same number to sanitation.

8. Develop a global partnership for development
   Targets:
   • Develop further an open trading and financial system that includes a commitment to good governance, development and poverty reduction – nationally and internationally
   • Address the least developed countries’ special needs, and the special needs of landlocked and small island developing States
   • Deal comprehensively with developing countries’ debt problems
   • Develop 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 technologies.

For further information on the implementation of the various goals, visit the UNDP website: http://www.undp.org/mdg/