Instigated by the United Nations in the year 2000, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) provide an ambitious and wide-ranging framework to end poverty around the world. There are eight UN MDGs which aim to be fulfilled by 2015.
With just five years to go, many of the eight goals have seen significant progress, although some goals have found that progress de-railed by the onset of the global financial crisis in 2008/09. There is also significant regional variance, with some areas doing better than others. Over the fifteen years from 1990, for example, the poverty rate in East Asia fell from 60% to 16%, while in sub-Saharan Africa the rate has stayed above 50%.
The eight MDGs are:
Millennium Development Goal 1: Eradicate Extreme Poverty and Hunger
Targets for the first MDG include:
- Halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people whose income is less than $1 a day.
- Achieve full and productive employment and decent work for all, including women and young people.
- Halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people who suffer from hunger.
The financial crisis has made achieving this goal more difficult than it would otherwise have been. While there have been some successes, the overall numbers are sobering. Globally, the number of hungry people rose from 842 million in 1990-92 to 1.02 billion people in 2009. The crisis also meant that the global number of working poor – earning less than $1.25 a day – rose from 615 million in 2008 by an estimated extra 215 million in 2009.
Millennium Development Goal 2: Achieve Universal Primary Education
Targets for the second MDG include:
- Ensure that, by 2015, children everywhere, boys and girls alike, will be able to complete a full course of primary schooling.
In developing countries primary school enrolment reached 88% in 2007, up from 83% in 2000.
Millennium Development Goal 3: Promote Gender Equality and Empower Women
Targets for the third MDG include:
- Eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education, preferably by 2005, and in all levels of education no later than 2015.
The gender gap in primary school enrolment has narrowed to over 95 girls for every 100 boys. Also, women's share of parliamentary seats increased to 19% in 2009, a 6% improvement since 1999. The gains have been substantial, but the figures show there is still a long way to go.
Millennium Development Goal 4: Reduce Child Mortality
Targets for the fourth MDG include:
- Reduce by two-thirds, between 1990 and 2015, the under-five mortality rate.
Again, the gains have been substantial but, taking the developing world as a whole, the figure of a 28% decline falls considerably short of the target of a two-thirds reduction in the under-five mortality rate. Some regions have however done well in this area. Child mortality rates have more than halved in Northern Africa, East Asia, South-east Asia and Latin America since 1990.
Millennium Development Goal 5: Improve Maternal Health
Targets for the fifth MDG include:
- Reduce by three-quarters the maternal mortality ratio.
- Achieve universal access to reproductive health.
The picture for maternal health is uneven. While East Asia, Northern Africa and South-east Asia showed declines of about 30% in maternal deaths between 1990 and 2005, sub-Saharan Africa showed little progress in this area.
Millennium Development Goal 6: Combat HIV/Aids, Malaria and Other Diseases
Targets included in the sixth MDG include:
- Halt and begin to reverse the spread of HIV/Aids by 2015.
- Achieve, by 2010, universal access to treatment for HIV/Aids for all those who need it.
- Halt and begin to reverse the incidence of malaria and other major diseases by 2015.
Globally, the new HIV infection rate decreased from a peak of around 3.5 million in 1996 to 2.7 million in 2008, a decrease of 30%.
Millennium Development Goal 7: Environmental Stability
Targets for the seventh MDG include:
- Halve, by 2015, the proportion of the population without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation.
- Reduce biodiversity loss, achieving a significant reduction in the rate of loss by 2010.
- Integrate the principles of sustainable development into country policies and reverse the loss of environmental resources.
- Achieve a significant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers by 2020.
The world is on course to achieve the safe drinking water target, but not the target for access to basic sanitation.
Millennium Development Goal 8: Global Partnership
Targets for the eighth MDG include:
- Develop further an open, rule-based, predictable, non-discriminatory trading and financial system.
- Deal comprehensively with developing countries' debt.
- Provide access to affordable essential drugs in developing countries, in cooperation with pharmaceutical companies.
- Make available benefits of new technologies, in cooperation with the private sector.
The proportion of imports from developing and least developed countries admitted free of duty into developed countries in 2007 rose to 79% and 80% respectively.
Millennium Development Goals: the Picture in 2010
The overall picture is heartening, with progress made at varying rates in the fight against world poverty. It is a long-term process however, susceptible to economic crises and natural disaster.
Sources:
UN: Millennium Development Goals at a Glance factsheet (accessed 18 February 2011)
UN Millennium Development Goals website (accessed 18 February 2011)
Paris Franz - Paris Franz is a London-based freelance journalist, specialising in the arts, history and travel.
