Millennium
Development Goals
In the year 2000, the assembly of state and government leaders present at the general assembly of the UN have adopted the Millennium Declaration that established the Millennium Development Goals (MDG), that is reducing poverty in the world by half from now on to 2015.
These objectives define clear targets for reducing poverty, hunger, diseases, illiteracy, degradation of the environment and discrimination against women. For each objective, a number of targets and indicators has been defined and is used for monitoring progress in their realization.
The Millennium Development Goals:
1 Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
1.2 billion persons live on less than $ 1 a day.
850 million persons in the world suffer from hunger.
Simplified formulation: To fight against poverty and provide for basic needs to live for all people in the world.
Target 1: Reduce by half, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people living on less than $ 1 a day.
Target 2: Reduce by half, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people suffering from hunger.
2 Achieve universal primary education
115 million children do not have access to primary education.
Simplified formulation: To enable all children, boys and girls, to go to school.
Target 3: From now on to 2015, give all children, boys and girls, everywhere around the world, the means to complete a full course of primary schooling.
3 Promote gender equality and empower women
Almost 60 % of the young people who quit primary school are girls.
Simplified formulation: Improve the lives of girls and women around the world in making sure that the little girls can go to school in order to learn to read and write so as to be better able to find a good job when they are adults and to defend women’s rights.
Target 4: Eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education and at all levels of education by 2015.
4 Reduce child mortality
30.000 children die every day because of diseases that could have been treated.
Simplified formulation: Make sure that children younger than 5 years do not die from hunger or disease.
Target 5: Reduce by two thirds the mortality rate among children under five, between 1990 and 2015.
5 Improve maternal health
Approximately 529.000 women die every year while giving birth. 99 % of these deaths happen in developing countries and 80 % of them could have been prevented.
Simplified formulation: Make sure that pregnant women and those who have babies have access to indispensable care for keeping them in good health.
Target 6: Reduce by three quarters the maternal mortality ratio, between 1990 and 2015.
6 Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases
39.5 million adults and children live with HIV/AIDS and there were close to 4.3 million new infections in 2006. Worldwide already more than 14 million children have become orphans.
On average there are 400 million cases of malaria each year, causing more than a million deaths.
Tuberculosis causes death of approximately 2 million people per year, the majority of whom is between 15 and 45 years.
Simplified formulation: Prevent that people get ill due to HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases.
Target 7: Between now and 2015 halt and begin to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS.
Target 8: Between now and 2015 halt and begin to reverse the incidence of malaria and other major diseases.
7 Ensure environmental sustainability
More than a billion human beings do not have access to drinking water. The exploitation without limits of natural resources has profound effects on our planet in the sense of modifying conditions of life for future generations (pollution, global warming, etc.)
Simplified formulation: Taking care of the earth so that all the inhabitants among the world can profit and providing access to drinking water for everyone.
Target 9: Integrate the principles of sustainable development into country policies and programs and reverse the loss of environmental resources.
Target 10: Between now and 2015 reduce by half the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water.
Target 11: Achieve significant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers, by 2015.
8 Develop a global partnership for development
The 15 richest persons of the world possess more goods than are being produced in one year by the 15 poorest countries.
Simplified formulation: Cooperate, at an international level, so that the situation of the poorest can improve.
Target 12: Develop further an open, rule-based, predictable, non-discriminatory trading and financial system.
Target 13: Address the special needs of the least developed countries.
Target 14: Address the special needs of landlocked developing countries and small island developing States.
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.
Target 16: In cooperation with developing countries, formulate and apply strategies that allow young people to find a decent and useful job.
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 communication, to everyone.