Millennium Development Goals

The Millennium Development Goals represent timeframes and quantitative targets drawn up by the global community within the framework of the UN with the aim of working towards the eradication of extreme poverty.

(To access the "Millennium Development Goals Report" as compiled by the UN, click here)

The Millennium Development Goals ultimately call for the universality of basic human rights, thus meaning that all citizens of the world might have access to healthcare and education, an appropriate habitat, and have their right to a life of peace and security upheld.

MDG 1 Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger

MDG 2 Achieve universal primary education

MDG 3 Promote gender equality and empower women

MDG 4 Reduce child mortality

MDG 5 Improve maternal health

MDG 6 Combat HIV/AIDS, Malaria and other diseases

MDG 6 Ensure environmental sustainability

MDG 7 Develop and global partnership for development

Sub-Saharan Africa, the principal focus of the MDGs, currently lies in a critical state. Unstable food supplies, extreme poverty on the increase, staggering infant and maternal mortality rates and a vast number of slum settlements mean that the prospect of the MDGs being achieved yet remains a far off reality.

Although Asia is an area experiencing rapid improvement, many people are still trapped in conditions of extreme poverty. Furthermore, those countries achieving rapid (economic) growth are not being able to meet the goals other than the income levels.

In other areas, especially in economically developing areas of Central and South America, areas which are experiencing improvement and those which are not are not co-exist in a confusing state of amalgam. On the other hand, in parts of the Middle East and North Africa, tangible improvement is limited or indeed non-existent, so deep rooted are the inequalities which act as obstructive barriers against development.