The United Nations Millennium Development Goals

UN Photo/Ryan Brown

At the United Nations Millennium Summit in September 2000, the largest-ever gathering of world leaders, every U.N. member state agreed to a declaration reaffirming the values and principles of the organization and rededicating themselves to the promotion of peace and security, sustainable development, human rights, democracy, and good governance. Stating that the "central challenge we face today is to ensure that globalization becomes a positive force for all the world's people," world leaders pledged in the Millennium Declaration to "create an environment—at the national and global levels alike—which is conducive to development and to the elimination of poverty." They also included in the declaration a set of clear, time-bound, and measurable development targets for combating poverty, hunger, disease, and environmental degradation, among others. Subsequently referred to as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), these targets provide a common global development strategy that has generated an unprecedented level of coordinated action within the U.N. system, the donor community, and developing countries.

The United Nations Millennium
Development Goals

1. Eradicate Extreme Poverty and Hunger

• By 2015, halve the proportion of people living on less than a dollar a day and those who suffer from hunger.

2. Achieve Universal Primary Education

• By 2015, ensure that all boys and girls complete primary school.

3. Promote Gender Equality and Empower Women

• Eliminate gender disparities in primary and secondary education, preferably by 2005, and at all levels by 2015.

4. Reduce Child Mortality

• By 2015, reduce by two thirds the mortality rate among children under five.

5. Improve Maternal Health

• By 2015, reduce by three quarters the ratio of women who die during childbirth.

6. Combat HIV/AIDS, Malaria, and Other Diseases

• By 2015, halt and begin to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS and the incidence of malaria and other major diseases.

7. Ensure Environmental Sustainability

• Integrate the principles of sustainable development into country policies and programs and reverse the loss of environmental resources.
  
  
• By 2015, halve the proportion of people without access to safe drinking water.
  
  
• By 2020, achieve significant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers.

8. Develop a Global Partnership for Development

• Develop further an open trading and financial system that is rule-based, predictable, and non-discriminatory and includes a commitment to good governance, development, and poverty reduction—nationally and internationally.
  
  
• Address the special needs of the least developed countries, including tariff- and quota-free access for their exports, enhanced debt relief, 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.
  
  
• 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.

Source: United Nations Department of Public Information

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