At the United Nations Millennium Summit in 2000, 189 Member States adopted the Millennium Declaration and pledged to reach the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).  They range from halving extreme poverty to halting the spread of HIV/AIDS and providing universal primary education, all by the target date of 2015 – 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.

UNDP and the MDGs

AT the request of the UN Secretary-General, UNDP is the MDG “scorekeeper” and “campaign manager”.  UNDP’s network links and coordinates global and national efforts towards reaching the 8 Goals.

The eight Millennium Development Goals

§         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     §         Ensure that all boys and girls complete a full course of primary schooling     §         Eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education preferably by 2005, and at all levels by 2015     §         Reduce by two thirds the mortality rate among children under five     §         Reduce by three quarters the maternal mortality ratio   §         Halt and begin to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS §         Halt and begin to reverse the incidence of malaria and other major diseases §         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 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