In the United Nations, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were eight goals for international development by the year 2015 created following the Millennium Summit, following the adoption of the United Nations Millennium Declaration. These were based on the OECD DAC International Development Goals agreed by Development Ministers in the "Shaping the 21st Century Strategy". The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) succeeded the MDGs in 2016.
All 191 United Nations member states, and at least 22 international organizations, committed to help achieve the following Millennium Development Goals by 2015:
To eradicate extreme poverty and hunger To achieve universal primary education To promote gender equality and empower women To reduce child mortality To improve maternal health To combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases To ensure environmental sustainability To develop a global partnership for development"Background", United Nations Millennium Development Goals, retrieved 16 June 2009.
Each goal had specific targets, and dates for achieving those targets. The eight goals were measured by 21 targets. To accelerate progress, the G8 finance ministers agreed in June 2005 to provide enough funds to the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the African Development Bank (AfDB) to cancel $40 to $55 billion in debt owed by members of the heavily indebted poor countries (HIPC) to allow them to redirect resources to programs for improving health and education and for alleviating poverty.
Critics of the MDGs complained of a lack of analysis and justification behind the chosen objectives, and the difficulty or lack of measurements for some goals and uneven progress, among others. Although developed countries' aid for achieving the MDGs rose during the challenge period, more than half went for debt relief and much of the remainder going towards natural disaster relief and military aid, rather than further development.
As of 2013, progress towards the goals was uneven. Some countries achieved many goals, while others were not on track to realize any. A UN conference in September 2010 reviewed progress to date and adopted a global plan to achieve the eight goals by their target date. New commitments targeted women's and children's health, and new initiatives in the worldwide battle against poverty, hunger and disease.
Background Origins Following the end of the Cold War, a series of UN‑led conferences in the 1990s had focused on issues such as children, nutrition, human rights and women, producing commitments for combined international action on those matters. The 1995 World Summit on Social Development produced a Copenhagen Declaration on Social Development with a long and complex list of commitments by global leaders, including many adapted from the outcomes of previous conferences. But international aid levels were falling and, in that same year, the Development Assistance Committee of the OECD set up a reflection process to review the future of development aid. The resulting 1996 report, "Shaping the 21st Century", turned some of the Copenhagen commitments into six monitorable "International Development Goals", which had similar content and form to the eventual MDGs: halving poverty by 2015; universal primary education by 2015; eliminating gender disparity in schools by 2005; reductions in infant, child and maternal mortality by 2015, universal access to reproductive health services by 2015 and adequate national strategies for sustainable development in place everywhere by 2015.
In late 1997, the UN General Assembly envisaged a special Millennium Assembly and forum as a focus for efforts to reform the UN system. A year later, it specifically resolved to hold not only the Millennium Assembly but also a Millennium Summit, and mandated the Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, to come up with proposals for "a number of forward-looking and widely relevant topics", thus opening the possibility of going beyond the institutional questions of UN reform. Annan's report, when published in April 2000 under the title "We the Peoples: The Role of the United Nations in the 21st Century", framed the questions of UN reform within the larger challenges facing the world, the chief of which was identified as "to ensure that globalization becomes a positive force for all the world's people, instead of leaving billions of them behind in squalor". In the report Annan urged the forthcoming Millennium Summit to adopt certain key goals and objectives on many of the issues raised in the Copenhagen summit, other conferences of the 1990s, and the recently published Brahimi Report on international peace and security.
The Millennium Summit and the General Assembly in September 2000 issued a Millennium Declaration echoing the agenda that Annan had set out. This declaration did not specifically mention "Millennium Development Goals", but it does contain the substance – and much of the same wording – as the eventual goals. A process of selecting and refining the Goals from the content of the Declaration continued for some time. A crucial moment here was unification between discussions under the auspices of the United Nations and approaches being followed by the OECD based on "Shaping the 21st Century"; this unification was agreed at a meeting convened by the World Bank in March 2001. In September 2001, Annan presented to the General Assembly a "Road map towards the implementation of the United Nations Millennium Declaration" which did contain a section specifically about "the Millennium Development Goals", enunciating some of them in their eventual wording, and indicating the remaining issues in formulating a definitive set.
Human capital, infrastructure and human rights The MDGs emphasized three areas: human capital, infrastructure and human rights (social, economic and political), with the intent of increasing living standards."The Millennium Development Goals Report" Human capital objectives include nutrition, healthcare (including child mortality, HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, and reproductive health) and education. Infrastructure objectives include access to safe drinking water, energy and modern information/communication technology; increased farm outputs using sustainable practices; transportation; and environment. Human rights objectives include empowering women, reducing violence, increasing political voice, ensuring equal access to public services and increasing security of property rights. The goals were intended to increase an individual's human capabilities and "advance the means to a productive life". The MDGs emphasize that each nation's policies should be tailored to that country's needs; therefore most policy suggestions are general.
Goals
The MDGs were developed out of several commitments set forth in the Millennium Declaration, signed in September 2000. There are eight goals with 21 targets, and a series of measurable health indicators and economic indicators for each target.
Goal 1: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger Target 1A: Halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people living on less than $1.25 a day Target 1B: Achieve Decent Employment for Women, Men, and Young People Target 1C: Halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people who suffer from hunger
Goal 2: Achieve universal primary education Target 2A: By 2015, all children can complete a full course of Primary education/primary schooling, girls and boys MDG 2 focused on primary education and emphasizes enrollment and completion. In some countries, primary enrollment increased at the expense of achievement levels. In some cases, the emphasis on primary education has negatively affected secondary and post-secondary education.
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
Goal 4: Reduce child mortality rates Target 4A: Reduce by two-thirds, between 1990 and 2015, the under-five mortality rate Achieving the MDGs does not depend on economic growth alone. In the case of MDG 4, developing countries such as Bangladesh have shown that it is possible to reduce child mortality with only modest growth with inexpensive yet effective interventions, such as measles immunization. Still, government expenditure in many countries is not enough to meet the agreed spending targets.
Goal 5: Improve maternal health Target 5A: Reduce by three-quarters, between 1990 and 2015, the maternal mortality ratio Target 5B: Achieve, by 2015, universal access to reproductive health
Goal 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases Target 6A: Have halted by 2015 and begun to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS Target 6B: Achieve, by 2010, universal access to treatment for HIV/AIDS for all those who need it Target 6C: Have halted by 2015 and begun to reverse the incidence of malaria and other major diseases Research on health systems suggests that a "one size fits all" model will not sufficiently respond to the individual healthcare profiles of developing countries; however, a study found a common set of constraints in scaling up international health, including the lack of absorptive capacity, weak health systems, human resource limitations, and high costs. The study argued that the emphasis on coverage obscures the measures required for expanding health care. These measures include political, organizational, and functional dimensions of scaling up, and the need to nurture local organizations.
Goal 7: Ensure environmental sustainability Target 7A: Integrate the principles of sustainable development into country policies and programs; reverse loss of environmental resources Target 7B: Reduce biodiversity loss, achieving, by 2010, a significant reduction in the rate of loss Target 7C: Halve, by 2015, the proportion of the population without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation Target 7D: By 2020, to have achieved a significant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum-dwellers
Goal 8: Develop a global partnership for development Target 8A: Develop further an open, rule-based, predictable, non-discriminatory trading and financial system Target 8B: Address the Special Needs of the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) Target 8C: Address the special needs of landlocked developing countries and small island developing States 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 Target 8E: In co-operation with pharmaceutical companies, provide access to affordable, essential drugs in developing countries Target 8F: In co-operation with the private sector, make available the benefits of new technologies, especially information and communications MDG 8 uniquely focused on donor achievements, rather than development successes. The Commitment to Development Index, published annually by the Center for Global Development in Washington, D.C., is considered the best numerical indicator for MDG 8. It is a more comprehensive measure of donor progress than official development assistance, as it takes into account policies on a number of indicators that affect developing countries such as trade, migration and investment.
Progress A major conference was held at UN headquarters in New York on 20–22 September 2010 to review progress. The conference concluded with the adoption of a global action plan to accelerate progress towards the eight anti-poverty goals. Major new commitments on women's and children's health, poverty, hunger and disease ensued.