Millennium Development Goals

The Millennium Development Goals are a UN initiative.

The MDGs in the United Nations Headquarters in New-York

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are eight international development goals that all 192 United Nations member states and at least 23 international organizations have agreed to achieve by the year 2015. They include reducing extreme poverty, reducing child mortality rates, fighting disease epidemics such as AIDS, and developing a global partnership for development.^[1]

Background

Heads of State at the Millennium Summit

In 2001, recognizing the need to assist impoverished nations more aggressively, UN member states adopted the targets. The MDGs aim to spur development by improving social and economic conditions in the world's poorest countries.

They derive from earlier international development targets,^[2] and were officially established at the Millennium Summit in 2000, where all world leaders present adopted the United Nations Millennium Declaration, from which the eight goals were promoted.

Goals

The percentage of the world's population living in extreme poverty has halved since 1981. The graph shows estimates and projections from the World Bank 1981–2009. Most of this improvement has occurred in East and South Asia.

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were developed out of the eight chapters of the United Nations Millennium Declaration, signed in September 2000. There are eight goals with 21 targets,^[3] and a series of measurable indicators for each target.^[4][5]

Goal 1: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger

• Target 1A: Halve the proportion of people living on less than $1 a day
  • Proportion of population below $1 per day (PPP values)
  • Poverty gap ratio [incidence x depth of poverty]
  • Share of poorest quintile in national consumption
• Target 1B: Achieve Decent Employment for Women, Men, and Young People
  • GDP Growth per Employed Person
  • Employment Rate
  • Proportion of employed population below $1 per day (PPP values)
  • Proportion of family-based workers in employed population
• Target 1C: Halve the proportion of people who suffer from hunger
  • Prevalence of underweight children under five years of age
  • Proportion of population below minimum level of dietary energy consumption^[6]

Goal 2: Achieve universal primary education

• Target 2A: By 2015, all children can complete a full course of primary schooling, girls and boys
  • Enrollment in primary education
  • Completion of primary education
  • Literacy of 15-24 year olds, female and male^[7]

Goal 3: Promote gender equality and empower women

• Target 3A: Eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education preferably by 2005, and at all levels by 2015
  • Ratios of girls to boys in primary, secondary and tertiary education
  • Share of women in wage employment in the non-agricultural sector
  • Proportion of seats held by women in national parliament^[8]

Goal 4: Reduce Child Mortality Rate

• Target 4A: Reduce by two-thirds, between 1990 and 2015, the under-five mortality rate
  • Under-five mortality rate
  • Infant (under 1) mortality rate
  • Proportion of 1-year-old children immunised against measles^[9]

Goal 5: Improve maternal health

• Target 5A: Reduce by three quarters, between 1990 and 2015, the maternal mortality ratio
  • Maternal mortality ratio
  • Proportion of births attended by skilled health personnel
• Target 5B: Achieve, by 2015, universal access to reproductive health
  • Contraceptive prevalence rate
  • Adolescent birth rate
  • Antenatal care coverage (at least one visit and at least four visits)
  • Unmet need for family planning^[10]

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

• Target 6A: Have halted by 2015 and begun to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS
  • HIV prevalence among population aged 15–24 years
  • Condom use at last high-risk sex
  • Proportion of population aged 15–24 years with comprehensive correct knowledge of HIV/AIDS
  • Ratio of school attendance of orphans to school attendance of non-orphans aged 10–14 years
• Target 6B: Achieve, by 2010, universal access to treatment for HIV/AIDS for all those who need it
  • Proportion of population with advanced HIV infection with access to antiretroviral drugs
• Target 6C: Have halted by 2015 and begun to reverse the incidence of malaria and other major diseases
  • Prevalence and death rates associated with malaria
  • Proportion of children under 5 sleeping under insecticide-treated bednets
  • Proportion of children under 5 with fever who are treated with appropriate anti-malarial drugs
  • Prevalence and death rates associated with tuberculosis
  • Proportion of tuberculosis cases detected and cured under DOTS (Directly Observed Treatment Short Course)^[11]

Goal 7: Ensure environmental sustainability

• Target 7A: Integrate the principles of sustainable development into country policies and programmes; reverse loss of environmental resources
• Target 7B: Reduce biodiversity loss, achieving, by 2010, a significant reduction in the rate of loss
  • Proportion of land area covered by forest
  • CO₂ emissions, total, per capita and per $1 GDP (PPP)
  • Consumption of ozone-depleting substances
  • Proportion of fish stocks within safe biological limits
  • Proportion of total water resources used
  • Proportion of terrestrial and marine areas protected
  • Proportion of species threatened with extinction
• Target 7C: Halve, by 2015, the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation (for more information see the entry on water supply)
  • Proportion of population with sustainable access to an improved water source, urban and rural
  • Proportion of urban population with access to improved sanitation
• Target 7D: By 2020, to have achieved a significant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum-dwellers
  • Proportion of urban population living in slums^[12]

Goal 8: Develop a global partnership for development

• Target 8A: 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
• Target 8B: Address the Special Needs of the Least Developed Countries (LDC)
  • Includes: tariff and quota free access for LDC exports; enhanced programme of debt relief for HIPC and cancellation of official bilateral debt; and more generous ODA (Overseas Development Assistance) for countries committed to poverty reduction
• Target 8C: Address the special needs of landlocked developing countries and small island developing States
  • Through the Programme of Action for the Sustainable Development of Small Island Developing States and the outcome of the twenty-second special session of the General Assembly
• Target 8D: Deal comprehensively with the debt problems of developing countries through national and international measures in order to make debt sustainable in the long term

Indicators

Some of the indicators listed below are monitored separately for the least developed countries (LDCs), Africa, landlocked developing countries and small island developing States.

• Official development assistance (ODA)
  • Net ODA, total and to LDCs, as percentage of OECD/DAC donors’ GNI
  • Proportion of total sector-allocable ODA of OECD/DAC donors to basic social services (basic education, primary health care, nutrition, safe water and sanitation)
  • Proportion of bilateral ODA of OECD/DAC donors that is untied
  • ODA received in landlocked countries as proportion of their GNIs
  • ODA received in small island developing States as proportion of their GNIs
• Market access
  • Proportion of total developed country imports (by value and excluding arms) from developing countries and from LDCs, admitted free of duty
  • Average tariffs imposed by developed countries on agricultural products and textiles and clothing from developing countries
  • Agricultural support estimate for OECD countries as percentage of their GDP
  • Proportion of ODA provided to help build trade capacity
• Debt sustainability
  • Total number of countries that have reached their HIPC decision points and number that have reached their HIPC completion points (cumulative)
  • Debt relief committed under HIPC initiative, US$
  • Debt service as a percentage of exports of goods and services
• Target 8E: In co-operation with pharmaceutical companies, provide access to affordable, essential drugs in developing countries
  • Proportion of population with access to affordable essential drugs on a sustainable basis
• Target 8F: In co-operation with the private sector, make available the benefits of new technologies, especially information and communications
  • Telephone lines and cellular subscribers per 100 population
  • Personal computers in use per 100 population
  • Internet users per 100 Population^[13]

Progress

Progress towards reaching the goals has been uneven. Some countries have achieved many of the goals,^[14] while others are not on track to realize any.^[15] The major countries that have been achieving their goals include China (whose poverty population has reduced from 452 million to 278 million) and India due to clear internal and external factors of population and economic development.^[16] However, areas needing the most reduction, such as the Sub-Saharan Africa regions have yet to make any drastic changes in improving their quality of life. In the same time as China, the Sub-Saharan Africa reduced their poverty about one percent, and are at a major risk of not meeting the MDGs by 2015.^[16] Fundamental issues will determine whether or not the MDGs are achieved, namely gender, the divide between the humanitarian and development agendas and economic growth, according to researchers at the Overseas Development Institute.^[17]

Goal 8 of the Millennium Development Goals is unique in the sense that it focus on donor government commitments and achievements, rather than successes in the developing world. The Commitment to Development Index, published annually by the Center for Global Development is often considered to be the numerical targeting indicator for the 8th MDG.^[18]. It is a more comprehensive measure of donor progress than simply Official Development Assistance as it takes into account policies on a number of indicators that affect developing countries such as trade, migration, and investment.

To accelerate progress towards the MDGs, the G-8 Finance Ministers met in London in June 2005 (in preparation for the G-8 Gleneagles Summit in July) and reached an agreement to provide enough funds to the World Bank, the IMF, and the African Development Bank (ADB) to cancel an additional $40–55 billion debt owed by members of the HIPC. This would allow impoverished countries to re-channel the resources saved from the forgiven debt to social programs for improving health and education and for alleviating poverty.^[19]

Backed by G-8 funding, the World Bank, the IMF, and the ADB each endorsed the Gleaneagles plan and implemented the Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative ("MDRI") to effectuate the debt cancellations. The MDRI supplements HIPC by providing each country that reaches the HIPC completion point 100% forgiveness of its multilateral debt. Countries that previously reached the decision point became eligible for full debt forgiveness once their lending agency confirmed that the countries had continued to maintain the reforms implemented during HIPC status. Other countries that subsequently reach the completion point automatically receive full forgiveness of their multilateral debt under MDRI.^[19]

While the World Bank and ADB limit MDRI to countries that complete the HIPC program, the IMF's MDRI eligibility criteria are slightly less restrictive so as to comply with the IMF's unique "uniform treatment" requirement. Instead of limiting eligibility to HIPC countries, any country with annual per capita income of $380 or less qualifies for MDRI debt cancellation. The IMF adopted the $380 threshold because it closely approximates the countries eligible for HIPC.^[19]

Yet, as we head towards 2015 increasing global uncertainties, such as the economic crisis and climate change, have led to an opportunity to rethink the MDG approach to development policy. According to the 'In Focus' Policy Brief from the Institute of Development Studies, the 'After 2015' debate is about questioning the value of an MDG-type, target-based approach to international development, about progress so far on poverty reduction, about looking to an uncertain future and exploring what kind of system is needed after the MDG deadline has passed.^[20]

Further developments in rethinking strategies and approaches to achieving the MDGs include research by the Overseas Development Institute into the role of equity.^[21] Researchers at the ODI argue progress can be accelerated due to recent breakthroughs in the role equity plays in creating a virtuous circle where rising equity ensures the poor participate in their country's develop and creates reductions in poverty and financial stability.^[21] Yet equity should not be understood purely as economic, but also as political. Examples abound and include Brazil's cash transfers, Uganda's eliminations of user fees and the subsequent huge increase in in visits from the very poorest or else Mauritius's dual-track approach to liberalisation (inclusive growth and inclusive development) aiding it on its road into the World Trade Organization.^[21] Researchers at the ODI thus propose equity be measured in league tables in order to provide a clearer insight into how MDGs can be achieved more quickly; the ODI is working with partners to put forward league tables at the 2010 MDG review meeting.^[21]

The effects of increasing drug use has been noted by the International Journal of Drug Policy as a deterrent to the goal of the MDGs.^[22]

Graphs from the Millennium Development Goals Report 2010

Proportion of people living on less than $1.25 a day (1990, 2005)  Enrolment in primary education (1999, 2008)  Under-five mortality rate (1990, 2008)  Numbers of people living with, newly infected with and killed by HIV (1990-2008)  Proportion of population using an 'improved water source' (1990, 2008)  External debt service payments as a proportion of export revenues (2000, 2008)  Internet users per hundred people (2003, 2008)

Review Summit 2010

A major conference will be held at UN headquarters in New York in September 2010 to review progress to date, with five years left to the 2015 deadline.

Controversy Over Funding of 0.7% of GNI

Over the past 35 years, the members of the UN have repeatedly made a "commit[ment] 0.7% of rich-countries' gross national product (GNI) to Official Development Assistance."^[23] The commitment was first made in 1970 by the UN General Assembly.

The text of the commitment was:

Each economically advanced country will progressively increase its official development assistance to the developing countries and will exert its best efforts to reach a minimum net amount of 0.7 percent of its gross national product at market prices by the middle of the decade.^[24]

However, there has been disagreement from the US, and other nations, over the Monterrey Consensus that urged "developed countries that have not done so to make concrete efforts towards the target of 0.7 per cent of gross national product (GNI) as ODA to developing countries."^[25][26]

Support for the 0.7% Target

The UN "believe[s] that donors should commit to reaching the long-standing target of 0.7 percent of GNI by 2015".^[24]

The European Union has recently reaffirmed its commitment to the 0.7% aid targets. The EU External Relations council says that, as of May 2005, "four out of the five countries, which exceed the UN target for ODA of 0.7%, of GNI are member states of the European Union."^[27]

Many organizations are working to bring U.S. political attention to the Millennium Development Goals. In 2007, The Borgen Project worked with Sen. Barack Obama on the Global Poverty Act, a bill requiring the White House to develop a strategy for achieving the goals. As of 2009, the bill has not passed, but Barack Obama has since been elected President.^[28][29]

Challenges to the 0.7% Target

However, many OECD nations, including key members such as the United States, are not progressing towards their promise of giving 0.7% of their GNP towards poverty reduction by the target year of 2015. Some nations' contributions have been criticized as falling far short of 0.7%.^[30]

John Bolton argues that the U.S. never agreed in Monterrey to spending 0.7% of GDP on development assistance. Indeed, Washington has consistently opposed setting specific foreign-aid targets since the U.N. General Assembly first endorsed the 0.7% goal in 1970.^[31]

The Australian Government has committed to providing 0.5% of GNI in International Development Assistance by 2015-2016, without noting the long-standing 0.7% goal.^[32]

Challenges of the Millennium Development Goals

Although developed countries' aid for the achievement of the MDGs have been rising over the recent year, it has shown that more than half is towards debt relief owed by poor countries. As well, remaining aid money goes towards natural disaster relief and military aid which does not further the country into development. According to the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (2006), the 50 least developed countries only receive about one third of all aid that flows from developed countries, raising the issue of aid not moving from rich to poor depending on their development needs but rather from rich to their closest allies.^[33]

Many development experts question the MDGs model of transferring billions of dollars directly from the wealthy nation governments to the often bureaucratic or corrupt governments in developing countries. This form of aid has led to extensive cynicism by the general public in the wealthy nations, and hurts support for expanding badly needed aid.

Related Organisations

The United Nations Millennium Campaign is a UNDP campaign unit to increase support to achieve the Millennium Development Goals and seek a coalition of partners for action. The Millennium Campaign targets intergovernmental, government, civil society organizations and media at both global and regional levels.

The Millennium Promise Alliance, Inc., or Millennium Promise^[34], is a U.S.-based non-profit organization dedicated to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals and founded in 2005 by renown international economist and Special Advisor on the MDGs to the UN Secretary General, Professor Jeffrey Sachs, and Wall Street leader and philanthropist, Ray Chambers. Millennium Promise coordinates a project, the Millennium Villages Project^[35], in partnership with Columbia University's Earth Institute and the UNDP that aims to demonstrate the feasibility of achieving the Goals through an integrated and community-led approach to holistic development. The Millennium Villages Project currently operates in 14 sites across 10 countries in sub-Saharan Africa.

The Micah Challenge is an international campaign that encourages Christians to support the Millennium Development Goals. Their aim is to "encourage our leaders to halve global poverty by 2015."^[36]

8 Visions of Hope is a global art project that explores and shows how art, culture, artists & musicians as positive change agents can help in the realization of the eight UN Millennium Development Goals.^[37]

The Development Education Unit of Future Worlds Center envisions, designs and implements development education awareness campaigns, trainings, conferences and resources since 2005. Leads a number of European-wide projects such as the Accessing Development Education and TeachMDGs.

MDG Related projects

Accessing Development Education:^[38] Portal developed within the EU funded project 'Accessing Development Education (ONG-ED/2007/136-419). Provides relevant information about Development Education/ Global Education and helps educators find resources and materials that are most suitable for their work.

TeachMDGs:^[39] European project that aims to increase awareness and public support for the Millennium Development Goals by actively engaging teacher training institutes, teachers and pupils in developing local oriented teaching resources promoting the MDGs with a particular focus on sub-Saharan Africa and integrate these into the educational systems.

References

External links

United Nations

• UN Millennium Development Goals
  • Review Summit 2010
• United Nations Millennium Declaration
• UN Stats Division - MDGs
  • MDG Report 2008(2007) (2006) (2005)
  • MDG Report Statistical Annex 2007 (2006)
  • MDG Progress Chart 2008 (2007) (2006) (2005)
• UN Development Programme - Section on MDGs

Others

• 8 Visions of Hope - Where Art meets the UN Millennium Development Goals
• Quality of Life Index
• Blueprint for a Better World - the Millennium Development Goals and You
• Caritas Australia - Make Poverty History with the Millennium Development Goals
• Millennium Development Goals Browser at OpenEconomics.net (includes full dataset in easily downloadable form)
• Millennium Development Goals Indicators: MDG Dashboard (downloadable database)
• MDG Progress Monitor produced by UN
• World Bank Site on MDGs
• Development Goals information site
• End Poverty 2015 - UN Millennium Campaign
• Ideas for Development - blog of heads of International Development Agencies
• MDG Africa Steering Group
• Generation 21
• The International Many articles on MDGs
• Country profile on Maternal and Newborn Health by Making Pregnancy Safer, World Health Organization
• Right to education Project
• Collaborative short film shot in Yemen, Egypt, Jordan and Morocco on the MDGs produced by Cortlan McManus
• Time for School An ongoing PBS documentary series that follows 7 children from 7 countries who are struggling to achieve a basic education. The series continues through 2015, the U.N.’s target date for achieving universal education (MDG #2)
• Masterclass on MDGs Review
• IPS News - MDGs Special Report