The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)

are eight international development goals that 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.

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, 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 and a series of measurable indicators for each target.

Goal 1: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger

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

Goal 2: Achieve universal primary education

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

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
o Ratios of girls to boys in primary, secondary and tertiary education
o Share of women in wage employment in the non-agricultural sector
o Proportion of seats held by women in national parliament

Goal 4: Reduce child mortality

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

Goal 5: Improve maternal health

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

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

• Target 6A: Have halted by 2015 and begun to reverse the spread of
HIV/AIDS
o HIV prevalence among population aged 15–24 years
o Condom use at last high-risk sex
o Proportion of population aged 15–24 years with comprehensive correct
knowledge of HIV/AIDS
o 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
o 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
o Prevalence and death rates associated with malaria
o Proportion of children under 5 sleeping under insecticide-treated bednets
o Proportion of children under 5 with fever who are treated with appropriate
anti-malarial drugs
o Prevalence and death rates associated with tuberculosis
o Proportion of tuberculosis cases detected and cured under DOTS (Directly
Observed Treatment Short Course)

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
o Proportion of land area covered by forest
o CO2 emissions, total, per capita and per $1 GDP (PPP)
o Consumption of ozone-depleting substances
o Proportion of fish stocks within safe biological limits
o Proportion of total water resources used
o Proportion of terrestrial and marine areas protected
o 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)
o Proportion of population with sustainable access to an improved water
source, urban and rural
o 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
o Proportion of urban population living in slums

Goal 8: Develop a global partnership for development

• Target 8A: Develop further an open, rule-based, predictable, non-
discriminatory trading and financial system
o 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)
o 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
o 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 PePe.

• Official development assistance (ODA)

o Net ODA, total and to LDCs, as percentage of OECD/DAC donors’ GNI
 o Proportion of total oral sex, sector-allocable ODA of OECD/DAC donors
to basic social services (basic education, primary health care, nutrition,
safe water and sanitation)
o Proportion of bilateral ODA of OECD/DAC donors that is untied
o ODA received in landlocked countries as proportion of their GNIs
o ODA received in small island developing States as proportion of their
GNIs
• Market access
o Proportion of total developed country imports (by value and excluding
arms) from developing countries and from LDCs, admitted free of duty
o Average tariffs imposed by developed countries on agricultural products
and textiles and clothing from developing countries
o Agricultural support estimate for OECD countries as percentage of their
GDP
o Proportion of ODA provided to help build trade capacity
• Debt sustainability
o Total number of countries that have reached their HIPC decision points
and number that have reached their HIPC completion points (cumulative)
o Debt relief committed under HIPC initiative, US$
o 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
o 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
o Telephone lines and cellular subscribers per 100 population
o Personal computers in use per 100 population
o Internet users per 100 Population.

Criticisam and Comments on millinium development goals

( are they achievable or not ) :

Goal 1: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger

Targets by 2015:
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.

Reducing poverty starts with children.

More than 30 per cent of children in developing countries – about 600 million – live on
less than US $1 a day.

Every 3.6 seconds one person dies of starvation. Usually it is a child under the age of 5.

Poverty hits children hardest. While a severe lack of goods and services hurts every
human, it is most threatening to children’s rights: survival, health and nutrition,
education, participation, and protection from harm and exploitation. It creates an
environment that is damaging to children’s development in every way – mental, physical,
emotional and spiritual.

One than 1 billion children are severely deprived of at least one of the essential goods and
services they require to survive, grows and develop. Some regions of the world have
more dire situations than others, but even within one country there can be broad
disparities – between city and rural children, for example, or between boys and girls. An
influx or tourism in one area may improve a country’s poverty statistics overall, while the
majority remains poor and disenfranchised.. For example, women who must walk long
distances to fetch household water may not be able to fully attend to their children, which
may affect their health and development. And children who themselves must walk long
distances to fetch water have less time to attend school – a problem that particularly
affects girls. Children who are not immunized or who are malnourished are much more
susceptible to the diseases that are spread through poor sanitation. Poverty exacerbates
the effects of HIV/AIDS and armed conflict. It entrenches social, economic and gender
disparities and undermines protective family environments.

Poverty contributes to malnutrition, which in turn is a contributing factor in over half of

the under-five deaths in developing countries. Some 300 million children go to bed
hungry every day. Of these only eight per cent are victims of famine or other emergency
situations. More than 90 per cent are suffering long-term malnourishment and
micronutrient deficiency.

The best start in life is critical in a child’s first few years, not only to survival but to her
or his physical, intellectual and emotional development. So these deprivations greatly
hamper children’s ability to achieve their full potential, contributing to a society’s cycle
of endless poverty and hunger.

Goal 2: Achieve universal primary education:

Target by 2015:
Ensure that all boys and girls complete a full course of primary schooling.

As of 2001 estimates around 115 million children of primary school age, the majority of
them girls, do not attend school.

Educating girls advances development for all.

Meeting the Education Goal will speed progress toward every other Millennium Goal.
Educating children helps reduce poverty and promote gender equality. It helps lower
child mortality rates and promotes concern for the environment. It is inextricably linked
to Goal 3 – gender parity – as universal primary education by definition requires gender
parity. Gender parity in primary education, meanwhile, is of limited worth if few children
of either sex participate.

Further, education – specifically free primary school for all children – is a fundamental
right to which governments committed themselves under the 1989 Convention of the
Rights of the Child.

Goal 3: Promote gender equality and empower women:

Eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education.

Die needlessly, placing the rest of the development agenda at risk.

Eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education.

While most of the Millennium Development Goals face a deadline of 2015, the gender
parity target was set to be achieved a full ten years earlier - an acknowledgement that
equal access to education is the foundation for all other development goals. Yet recent
statistics show that for every 100 boys out of school, there are still 117 girls in the same
situation. Until equal numbers of girls and boys are in school, it will be impossible to
build the knowledge necessary to eradicate poverty and hunger, combat disease and
ensure environmental sustainability. And millions of children and women will continue to
die needlessly, placing the rest of the development agenda at risk.

Goal 4: Reduce child mortality:

Targets by 2015:
To reduce child mortality by two-thirds, from 93 children of every 1,000 dying before
age five in 1990 to 31 of every 1,000 in 2015.

Child survival lies at the heart of everything UNICEF does.

About 29,000 children under the age of five – 21 each minute – die every day, mainly
from preventable causes.

More than 70 per cent of almost 11 million child deaths every year are attributable to six
causes: diarrhea, malaria, neonatal infection, pneumonia, preterm delivery, or lack of
oxygen at birth.

These deaths occur mainly in the developing world. An Ethiopian child is 30 times more
likely to die by his or her fifth birthday than a child in Western Europe. Among deaths in
children, South-central Asia has the highest number of neonatal deaths, while sub-
Saharan Africa has the highest rates. Two-thirds of deaths occur in just 10 countries.
And the majority is preventable. Some of the deaths occur from illnesses like measles,
malaria or tetanus. Others result indirectly from marginalization, conflict and HIV/AIDS.
Malnutrition and the lack of safe water and sanitation contribute to half of all these
children’s deaths.

But disease isn’t inevitable, nor do children with these diseases need to die. Research and
experience show that six million of the almost 11 million children who die each year
could be saved by low-tech, evidence-based, cost-effective measures such as vaccines,
antibiotics, micronutrient supplementation, insecticide-treated bed nets and improved
family care and breastfeeding practices.

Goal 5: Improve maternal health

Target by 2015:
Reduce the maternal mortality ratio by three quarters.

Healthy children need healthy mothers.

A woman dies from complications in childbirth every minute – about 529,000 each year
-- the vast majority of them in developing countries.

A woman in sub-Saharan Africa has a 1 in 16 chance of dying in pregnancy or childbirth,

compared to a 1 in 4,000 risk in a developing country – the largest difference between
poor and rich countries of any health indicator.

This glaring disparity is reflected in a number of global declarations and resolutions. In

September 2001, 147 heads of states collectively endorsed Millennium Development
Goals 4 and 5: To reduce child mortality rate by 2/3 and maternal mortality ratio by 3/4
between 1990 and 2015. Strongly linked to these is Goal 6: To halt or begin to reverse the
spread of HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases.

The direct causes of maternal deaths are hemorrhage, infection, obstructed labor,
hypertensive disorders in pregnancy, and complications of unsafe abortion. There are
birth-related disabilities that affect many more women and go untreated like injuries to
pelvic muscles, organs or the spinal cord. At least 20% of the burden of disease in
children below the age of 5 is related to poor maternal health and nutrition, as well as
quality of care at delivery and during the newborn period. And yearly 8 million babies die
before or during delivery or in the first week of life. Further, many children are tragically
left motherless each year. These children are 10 times more likely to die within two years
of their mothers' death.

Another risk to expectant women is malaria. It can lead to anemia, which increases the
risk for maternal and infant mortality and developmental problems for babies. Nutritional
deficiencies contribute to low birth weight and birth defects as well.

HIV infection is an increasing threat. Mother-to-child transmission of HIV in low-

resource settings, especially in those countries where infection in adults is continuing to
grow or has stabilized at very high levels, continues to be a major problem, with up to 45
per cent of HIV-infected mothers transmitting infection to their children. Further, HIV is
becoming a major cause of maternal mortality in highly affected countries in Southern
Africa.

A majority of these deaths and disabilities are preventable, being mainly due to
insufficient care during pregnancy and delivery. About 15 per cent of pregnancies and
childbirths need emergency obstetric care because of complications that are difficult to
predict.

Access to skilled care during pregnancy, childbirth and the first month after delivery is
key to saving these women's lives – and those of their children.

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

At the end of 2007, 33 million people were living with HIV. That same year, some 2.7
million people became newly infected, and 2.0 million died of AIDS, including 270 000
children. Two thirds of HIV infections are in sub-Saharan Africa where there are an
estimated 7 million people needing antiretroviral therapy.

WHO is working with countries?

 • to prevent people becoming infected with HIV – helping to change behaviors to
reduce HIV risks; increasing access to prevention commodities; supporting
programmers for prevention of mother to child transmission of HIV; promoting
safe blood supplies and prevention of HIV transmission in health care settings;
assessing new prevention technologies;
• to expand the availability of treatment;
• to provide the best care for people living with HIV/ AIDS and their families;
• to expand access and uptake of HIV testing and counseling so that people can
learn their HIV status;
• to strengthen health care systems so that they can deliver quality and sustainable
HIV/AIDS programmers and services; and
• To improve HIV/AIDS information systems, including HIV surveillance,
monitoring and evaluation and operational research.

More about Target 6A and 6B

Target 6C. Have halted by 2015 and begun to reverse the incidence of malaria and
other major diseases

MALARIA

Malaria kills nearly one million people a year – most of

them children under five in Africa. In fact, on average a
child in Africa dies every 30 seconds from a malaria
infection caused by the bite of a mosquito.

WHO urges three main strategies to tackle malaria?

• prevention with long-lasting insecticidal nets;

• prevention with indoor residual spraying; and
• Rapid treatment with effective anti-malarial medicines.

WHO also recommends a special focus on preventing pregnant women and young
children? Whose target, and that of the Roll Back Malaria Partnership, is to cut malaria
by half by 2010, with the goal of reaching the MDG target by 2015.

TUBERCULOSIS

There are more than nine million new cases of TB every year and an estimated 1.77
million deaths (including 456 000 people with HIV), making this disease one of the
world's biggest killers.

Global incidence rates are now stabilizing and all regions of the world are on track to
meet the MDG targets of halving TB prevalence and deaths by 2015 – except in Africa
and Europe.
WHO – in collaboration with the Stop TB Partnership – is working to combat the
epidemic through Stop TB Strategy? This six-point strategy seeks to:

• pursue high-quality DOTS expansion and enhancement;

• address TB/HIV, multidrug-resistant TB and the needs of poor and vulnerable
populations;
• contribute to health system strengthening based on primary health care;
• engage all care providers;
• Empower people with TB, and communities through partnership.

Goal 7: Ensure environmental sustainability:

Targets by 2015:
Reduce by half the proportion of people without access to safe drinking water and basic
sanitation.

Safe water and sanitation are critical for survival.

A child dies every 15 seconds from disease attributable to unsafe drinking water,
deplorable sanitation and poor hygiene.

As of 2002, one in six people worldwide – 1.1 billion total – had no access to clean
water. About 400 million of these are children. Four of ten people worldwide don't have
access to even a simple latrine. And more than 614 million children have to live in
dwellings with more than five people per room or that have mud flooring.

In sub-Saharan Africa in countries such as Ethiopia, Rwanda and Uganda, four out of five
children either use surface water or have to walk more than 15 minutes to find a protected
water source.

This urgent unmet need is the basis for other problems. Unclean water spreads diseases
such as cholera and infant diarrhea, which kill five million people per year, mainly
children. More than half of Africans suffer from such water-related diseases. And poor
health harms children’s learning potential. For example, 400 million school-aged children
a year are infected by intestinal worms that sap their cognitive abilities.

And children – mainly girls – forced to walk long distances for safe water are in effect
barred from attending school. The lack of a latrine severely affects their health and
dignity in other ways. They may have to wait until night to relieve themselves for safety
and modesty. And their household roles mean they can more easily transmit disease to
the family if they don’t have water for good hygiene. Sick, pregnant and post-partum
women are most likely to suffer from lack of sanitation and to pass disease on to their
children.

It’s not that there isn’t enough water to go around. Lacking are the commitments of
governments, the technology to help ensure good water and sanitation, and the money to
put water programmers into place.

Goal 8: Develop a Global Partnership for Development:

Globalization has emerged as the dominant feature of the world economy and is bound to
retain this pre-eminence in the coming years. Trade has been recognized as a central
element in industrial development strategies for some time. However, the liberalization of
investment and trade regimes on their own do not ensure that much of the developing
world benefits from global markets and achieves rapid economic growth. The 8th MDG
on global partnership contains the important target to develop a trading system that is
open, rule-based, predictable and non-discriminatory.

For MDG8, UNIDO’s response is to actively foster value-addition, diversification of

production away from a heavy reliance on commodities, and on capacity-building to meet
the technical and business requirements of participation in trade. UNIDO thus works in
partnership with others across the breadth of its activities, as well as addressing the key
MDG targets of meeting the special needs of LDCs and, through its trade-capacity
building activities. In this way, it helps partner countries to take advantage of the global
trading system.

UNIDO implements the following activities directly related to MDG8:

• Industrial Policy, Business Environment and Institutional Support

• Agro-processing and Value Chain Development
• Sustainable Production in Poor Communities
• Technology Diffusion
• Promotion of Domestic Investment, FDI and Alliances
• Competitiveness Analysis and Trade-related Policies
• Enterprise Upgrading for Trade Enhancement
• Innovation Systems, Technology Management and Foresight
• Modernization of Export-oriented Agro-industries
• Corporate Social Responsibility for Market Integration
• Standards, Metrology, Testing and Conformity
Example of UNIDO project under MDG8:

Quality and Compliance infrastructure

The capacity of developing countries to comply with standards needs to be enhanced.

ISO 9001, ISO 14001 and ISO 22000 are some of the system standards that exporters
need to comply with if they want to enter many foreign markets. UNIDO has developed a
comprehensive programme to help developing countries and economies in transition to
overcome the shortcomings of their standards and conformity infrastructure.

Millinium development goals in pakistan:

The Millennium Development Goals are a very important project and are achievable if
our government, non government organizations, youth and whole nation realize their
importance, pay attention towards the goals, show sincerity and do the hard work needed.
This is very hard indeed, but achievable.

Pakistan falls into the category of developing country and lacks in so many fields:
- Shortage of qualified doctors, specialist, educators, professionals
- Shortage of hospitals, medical centers
- Primary education is not available to all children
- Shortage of institutes and universities for higher education
- Abundance of jobless people
- Lack of infrastructure / technology
- And many more

But, in spite of this, Pakistan is progressing rapidly and has already achieved some
milestones in many fields and I am sure Pakistan will be able to become a healthy and
wealthy nation in near future. Perhaps, Pakistan shall not be able to cover all of the
MDG’s - but can cover at least 5 Goals.

The Millennium Development Goals are a very important project from the perspective of
the future of Pakistan, but the government is not doing anything to provide awareness to
people. Very few people know anything about the MDGs.

70% of Pakistan’s population lives in villages where there is no technology, Internet,

infrastructure, schools or even electricity, gas and phone facilities available! So in this
context, how can people think about MDG? It becomes very important for government to
inform people about the MDGs.
Now the question arises what me and other youths can do to achieve the MDGs.

I have so many ideas and have been implementing some. I am moderator of many web-
based groups and I already have sent MDG Kits to my friends, relatives, members of
government, emphasizing their importance. Through this, I have conveyed the message
of the MDGs to at least thousands of young people - and I am getting a very good
Response. Pakistan lacks in many fields and we need full support from Developed
countries in order to achieve the MDGs. I have intentions to send some proposals to
developed countries’ government officials and youth - and I hope to get a good response
from them too!

Currently, developed countries are ‘destructing’ Iraq, Kashmir, Palestine, Afghanistan

and many other places. These people and countries certainly will not be able to achieve
the MDGs because the only supports they have from developed countries are in terms of
attacks, bombardment, and destruction! Rather than terms of funding, technology, tools
etc. It is so sad! In this situation, how can Iraq, Kashmir and Afghanistan’s peoples think
about MDGs?