In September of 2000,
the Member States of the United Nations met at the Millennium Summit and
reaffirmed their commitment to the Charter of the United Nations by unanimously
adopting the Millennium Declaration. The Millennium Development Goals
are a means of implementing this Declaration. It is significant that all
191 United Nations Member States have pledged to meet these goals by the
year 2015
1. Eradicate extreme
poverty and hunger:
a. Reduce by half
the proportion of people living on less than a dollar a day.
b. Reduce by half
the proportion of people who suffer from hunger.
2. Achieve universal
primary education:
Ensure that all
boys and girls complete a full course of primary schooling.
3. Promote gender
equality and empower women:
Eliminate gender
disparity in primary and secondary education preferably by 2005, and
at all levels by 2015.
4. Reduce child mortality:
Reduce by two
thirds the mortality rate among children under five.
5. Improve maternal
health:
Reduce by three
quarters the maternal mortality ratio.
6. Combat HIV/AIDS,
malaria and other diseases:
Halt and begin
to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS.
Halt and begin
to reverse the incidence of malaria and other major diseases.
7. Ensure environmental
sustainability:
Integrate the principles
of sustainable development into country policies and programmes; reverse
loss of environmental resources.
Reduce by half
the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking
water.
Achieve significant
improvement in lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers, by 2020.
8. Develop a global
partnership for development:
Develop further
an open trading and financial system that is rule-based, predictable
and non-discriminatory. Includes a commitment to good governance, development
and poverty reduction-nationally and internationally.
Address the least
developed countries' special needs. This includes tariff- and quota-free
access for their exports; enhanced debt relief for heavily indebted
poor countries; cancellation of official bilateral debt; and more generous
official development assistance for countries committed to poverty reduction.
Address the special
needs of landlocked and small island developing States.
Deal comprehensively
with developing countries' debt problems through national and international
measures to make debt sustainable in the long term.
In cooperation
with the developing countries, develop decent and productive work for
youth.
In cooperation
with pharmaceutical companies, provide access to affordable essential
drugs in developing countries.
In cooperation
with the private sector, make available the benefits of new technologies-especially
information and communications technologies.
