Millennium Development Goals

In September 2000, at the United Nations Millennium Summit, world leaders agreed to a set of timebound and measurable goals and targets for combating poverty, hunger, disease, illiteracy, environmental degradation and discrimination against women. Placed at the heart of global agenda, they are now called the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

The Goals offer the world a means to accelerate the pace of development and to measure results.

		Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger				Reduce by half the proportion of people living on less than a dollar a day Reduce by half the proportion of people who suffer from hunger
		Achieve universal primary education				Ensure that all boys and girls complete a full course of primary schooling
		Promote gender equality and empower women				Eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education preferably by 2005, and at all levels by 2015
		Reduce child mortality .				Reduce by two thirds the mortality rate among children under five
		Improve maternal health .				Reduce by three quarters the maternal mortality ratio
		Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases				Halt and begin to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS Halt and begin to reverse the incidence of malaria and other major diseases
		Ensure environmental sustainability				Integrate the principles of sustainable development into country policies and programmes; reverse loss of environmental resources Reduce by half the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water Achieve significant improvement in lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers, by 2020
		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 least developed countries’ special needs. This includes tariff- and quota-free access for their exports; enhanced debt relief for heavily indebted poor countries; 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 developing countries’ debt problems through national and international measures to make debt sustainable in the long term In cooperation with the developing countries, 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