United Nations Millennium Development Goals

GET INFORMED: THE MILLENIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS

In September 2000, at the United Nations Millennium Summit, the largest gathering of world leaders agreed to a set of measurable goals for combating the world's main development challenges such as poverty, hunger, disease, and environmental degradation. These Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are 8 goals adopted by 189 nations- and are to be achieved by 2015.

The MDGs provide a framework for the UN system and countries to work together towards a common objective. The UN Development Group (UNDG) will help ensure that the MDGs are at the centre of efforts to advocate for change, and connect developing countries to knowledge and resources to help coordinate efforts at the local level.

The Eight Millenium Development Goals are:

1. Goal 1: 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
2. Goal 2: Achieve universal primary education
   • Ensure that all boys and girls complete a full course of primary schooling
3. Goal 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. Goal 4: Reduce child mortality
   • Reduce by two thirds the mortality rate among children under five
5. Goal 5: Improve maternal health
   • Reduce by three quarters the maternal mortality ratio
6. Goal 6: 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
7. Goal 7: Ensure environmental sustainability
   • Integrate the principles of sustainable development into country policies and programs; 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
8. Goal 8: Develop a Global Partnership for Development
   • Develop further an open, rule-based, predictable, non-discriminatory trading and financial system Includes a commitment to good governance, development, and poverty reduction — both nationally and internationally
   • Address the special needs of the least developed countries Includes: tariff and quota free access for least developed countries’ exports; enhanced program of debt relief for HIPCs and cancellation of official bilateral debt; and more generous ODA for countries committed to poverty reduction
   • Address the special needs of landlocked countries 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

Youth For Change 2008 projects will relate to MDG #1: reducing poverty and hunger. The MDG aims to reduce by half the proportion of people living on less than a dollar a day and reduce by half the proportion of people who suffer from hunger.

Need more info? Check out the UN’s Millennium Development Goals.