The MDGs are an ambitious agenda for reducing poverty and improving lives that world leaders agreed on at the Millennium Summit in September 2000. For each goal one or more targets have been set, most for 2015. Here is the story behind the MDGs - at the Millennium Summit in September 2000 the states of the United Nations reaffirmed their commitment to working toward a world in which sustaining development and eliminating poverty would have the highest priority. The MDGs grew out of the agreements and resolutions of world conferences organised by the United Nations in the past decade. The goals have been commonly accepted as a framework for measuring development progress. The goals focus the efforts of the world community on achieving significant, measurable improve-ments in people’s lives. They establish yardsticks for measuring results, not just for developing coun-tries but for rich countries that help to fund development programmes and for the multilateral institu-tions that help countries implement them. For each goal one or more targets have been set, most for 2015. In total the eight MDGs comprise 18 targets and 48 indicators. Below are the goals and the targets listed. The indicators can be found at http://www.developmentgoals.org/ MDG 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
MDG 2: Achieve universal primary education - Ensure that all boys and girls complete a full course of primary schooling
MDG 3: Promote gender equality and empower women - Eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education preferably by 2005, and at all levels by 2015
MDG 4: Reduce child mortality - Reduce by two thirds the mortality rate among children under five
MDG 5: Improve maternal health - Reduce by three quarters the maternal mortality ratio
MDG 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
MDG 7: 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.
MDG 8: 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
Read more:
The website of the United Nations
Millennium Development Goals | 
