Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)

We recognize that, in addition to our separate responsibilities to our individual societies, we have a collective responsibility to uphold the principles of human dignity, equality and equity at the global level.
The Millennium Development Goals are intended to ease the constraints on people’s ability to make choices.

The Goals—building blocks for Human Development…

Human development is about people, about expanding their choices to live full, creative lives with freedom and dignity. Economic growth, increased trade and investment, technological advance—all are very important. But they are means, not ends.

Fundamental to expanding human choices is building human capabilities: the range of things that people can be. The most basic capabilities for human development are living a long and healthy life, being educated, having a decent standard of living and enjoying political and civil freedoms to participate in the life of one’s community.

The leaders have a duty to the entire world’s people, especially the most vulnerable and in particular, the children of the world, to whom the future belongs.

UN Millennium Declaration

In September 2000 the world’s leaders gathered at the UN Millennium Summit to commit their nations to strengthening global efforts for peace, human rights, democracy, strong governance, environmental sustainability and poverty eradication, and to promoting principles of human dignity, equality and equity.
The resulting Millennium Declaration, adopted by 189 countries, includes urgent, collective commitments to overcome the poverty that still grips most of the world’s people. Global leaders did not settle for business as usual—because they knew that business as usual was not enough. Instead they committed themselves to ambitious targets with clearly defined deadlines.

At the 2000 summit the UN General Assembly also asked the UN Secretary-General to prepare a road map for achieving the Declaration’s commitments—resulting in the Millennium Development Goals, made up of 8 Goals, 18 targets and 48 indicators.

The Goals and the promotion of human development share a common motivation and reflect a vital commitment to promoting human well-being that entails dignity, freedom and equality for all people.

The Goals are benchmarks of progress towards the vision of the Millennium Declaration—guided by basic values of freedom, equality, solidarity, tolerance, respect for nature and shared responsibilities. They also mirror the fundamental motivation for human rights. Thus the Goals, human development and human rights share the same motivation.

The Goals are unique in their ambition, concreteness and scope. They are also unique in their explicit recognition that the Goals for eradicating poverty can be achieved only through stronger partnerships among development actors and through increased pro poor actions by rich countries. The Goals are a major step towards building a true partnership for development, and in defining what is meant by partnership.

Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)

Goal 1 Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger

Target 1. Halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people whose income is less than $1 a day
Target 2. Halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people who suffer from hunger

Goal 2 Achieve universal primary education

Target 3. Ensure that, by 2015, children everywhere, boys and girls alike, will be able to complete a full course of primary schooling

Goal 3 Promote gender equality and empower women

Target 4. Eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education, preferably by 2005, and in all levels of education no later than 2015

Goal 4 Reduce child mortality

Target 5. Reduce by two-thirds, between 1990 and 2015, the under-five mortality rate

Goal 5 Improve maternal health

Target 6. Reduce by three-quarters, between 1990 and 2015, the maternal mortality ratio

Goal 6 Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases

Target 7. Have halted by 2015 and begun to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS
Target 8. Have halted by 2015 and begun to reverse the incidence of malaria and other major diseases

Goal 7 Ensure environmental sustainability

Target 9. Integrate the principles of sustainable development into country policies and programs and reverse the loss of environmental resources
Target 10. Halve, by 2015, the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation
Target 11. Have achieved by 2020 a significant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers

Goal 8 Develop a global partnership for development

Target 12. Develop further an open, rule-based, predictable, nondiscriminatory trading and financial system (includes a commitment to good governance, development, and poverty reduction (both nationally and internationally)
Target 13. 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 heavily indebted poor countries [HIPCs] and cancellation of official bilateral debt, and more generous official development assistance for countries committed to poverty reduction)
Target 14. Address the special needs of landlocked developing countries and small island developing states (through the Program of Action for the Sustainable Development of Small Island Developing States and 22nd General Assembly provisions)
Target 15. Deal comprehensively with the debt problems of developing countries through national and international measures in order to make debt sustainable in the long term

Some of the indicators listed below are monitored separately for the least developed countries, Africa, landlocked developing countries, and small island developing states

Target 16. In cooperation with developing countries, develop and implement strategies for decent and productive work for youth
Target 17. In cooperation with pharmaceutical companies, provide access to affordable essential drugs in developing countries
Target 18. In cooperation with the private sector, make available the benefits of new technologies, especially information and communications technologies