Millennium Development Goals Background Guide
The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are eight international development goals that all
193 United Nations member states and at least 23 international organizations have agreed to achieve by
the year 2015.
Background
The aim of the MDGs is to encourage development by improving social and economic conditions
in the world's poorest countries. They derive from earlier international development targets, and were
officially established following the Millennium Summit in 2000, where all world leaders present adopted
the United Nations Millennium Declaration.
The Millennium Summit was presented with the report of the Secretary-General, entitled “We
the Peoples: The Role of the United Nations in the Twenty-First Century”. Additional input was prepared
by the Millennium Forum, which brought together representatives of over 1,000 non-governmental and
civil society organisations from more than 100 countries. The Forum met in May 2000 to conclude a
two-year consultation process covering issues such as poverty eradication, environmental protection,
human rights and protection of the vulnerable. The approval of the MDGs was possibly the main
outcome of the Millennium Summit.
Development of 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 MDGs originated from the Millennium Declaration produced by the United Nations. The Declaration
asserts that every individual has the right to dignity, freedom, equality, a basic standard of living that
includes freedom from hunger and violence, and encourages tolerance and solidarity. The MDGs were
designed to execute these ideas by setting targets and indicators for poverty reduction in order to
achieve the rights set forth in the Declaration on a set fifteen-year timeline.
The Millennium Declaration was, however, only part of the origins of the MDGs. It came about from not
just the UN but also the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the World
Bank and the International Monetary Fund. The setting came about through a series of UN-led
conferences in the 1990s focusing on issues such as children, nutrition, human rights, women and
others. With the onset of the UN's 50th anniversary, then UN Secretary General Kofi Annan saw the
need to address the range of development issues. This led to his report entitled “We the Peoples: The
Role of the United Nations in the 21st Century”, which led to the Millennium Declaration.
Goals
The MDGs focus on three major areas of human development—bolstering human capital,
improving infrastructure, and increasing social, economic and political rights—with the majority of the
focus directed towards increasing the basic standards of living. The objectives chosen within the human
capital focus include improving nutrition, healthcare (including reducing levels of child mortality,
HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, and increasing reproductive health), and education. For the
infrastructure focus, the objectives include improving infrastructure through increasing access to safe
drinking water, energy and modern information/communication technology; amplifying farm outputs
through sustainable practices; improving transportation infrastructure; and preserving the environment.
Lastly, for the social, economic and political rights focus, the objectives include empowering women,
reducing violence, increasing political voice, ensuring equal access to public services, and increasing
security of property rights. The goals chosen were intended to increase an individual’s capabilities and
“advance the means to a productive life”. The MDGs emphasize that individual policies needed to
achieve these goals should be tailored to individual country’s needs; therefore most policy suggestions
are general.
The MDGs also emphasize the role of developed countries in aiding developing countries, as
outlined in Goal Eight. Goal Eight sets objectives and targets for developed countries to achieve a
“global partnership for development” by supporting fair trade, debt relief for developing nations,
increasing aid and access to affordable essential medicines, and encouraging technology transfer. Thus
developing nations are not seen as left to achieve the MDGs on their own, but as a partner in the
developing-developed compact to reduce world poverty.
The MDGs were developed out of the eight chapters of the 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.
Target 1B: Achieve decent employment for women, men, and young people.
Target 1C: Halve the proportion of people who suffer from hunger.
Goal 2: Achieve universal primary education
Target 2A: By 2015, all children can complete a full course of primary schooling, girls and boys.
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.
Goal 4: Reduce child mortality rates
Target 4A: Reduce by two-thirds, between 1990 and 2015, the under-five mortality rate.
Goal 5: Improve maternal health
Target 5A: Reduce by three quarters, between 1990 and 2015, the maternal mortality ratio.
Target 5B: Achieve, by 2015, universal access to reproductive health.
Goal 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases
Target 6A: Have halted by 2015 and begun to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS.
Target 6B: Achieve, by 2010, universal access to treatment for HIV/AIDS for all those who need it.
Target 6C: Have halted by 2015 and begun to reverse the incidence of malaria and other major diseases.
Goal 7: Ensure environmental sustainability
Target 7A: Integrate the principles of sustainable development into country policies and programs;
reverse loss of environmental resources
Target 7B: Reduce biodiversity loss, achieving, by 2010, a significant reduction in the rate of loss
Target 7C: Halve, by 2015, the proportion of the population without sustainable access to safe drinking
water and basic sanitation.
Target 7D: By 2020, to have achieved a significant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slumdwellers 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.
Target 8B: Address the Special Needs of the Least Developed Countries (LDC).
Target 8C: Address the special needs of landlocked developing countries and small island developing
States.
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.
Target 8E: In co-operation with pharmaceutical companies, provide access to affordable, essential drugs
in developing countries.
Target 8F: In co-operation with the private sector, make available the benefits of new technologies,
especially information and communications.
Debate surrounding the MDGs
Drawbacks of the MDGs include the lack of analytical power and justification behind the chosen
objectives. The MDGs leave out important ideals, such as the lack of strong objectives and indicators for
equality, which is considered by many scholars to be a major flaw of the MDGs due to the disparities of
progress towards poverty reduction between groups within nations. The MDGs also lack a focus on local
participation and empowerment (excluding women’s empowerment). As well, the MDGs lack an
emphasis on sustainability, making their future after 2015 questionable. Thus, while the MDGs are a tool
for tracking progress toward basic poverty reduction and provide a very basic policy road map to
achieving these goals, they do not capture all elements needed to achieve the ideals set out in the
Millennium Declaration.
Another criticism of the MDGs is the difficulty or lack of measurements for some of the goals,
such as goals related to maternal mortality, malaria, and tuberculosis, which, in practice, are impossible
to measure and current UN estimates do not have scientifically validity. Household surveys are often
used by the UN organisations to estimate data for the health MDGs and these surveys have been stated
as being poor measurements of the data that the UN is trying to collect, and many different
organisations have redundant surveys, which waste limited resources. Furthermore, countries with the
highest levels of maternal mortality, malaria, and tuberculosis often have the least amount of reliable
data collection. Without accurate measures of past and current data for the health related MDGs, it is
impossible to determine if progress has been made toward the goals, leaving the MDGs as little more
than a call to arms.
Proponents for the MDGs argue that while some goals are difficult to measure, that there is still
validity in setting goals as they provide a political and operational framework to achieving the goals.
They also assert that non-health related MDGs are often well measured, and it is wrong to assume that
all MDGs are doomed to fail due to lack of data. With an increase in the quantity and quality of
healthcare systems in developing countries, more data will be collected, as well as more progress made.
Lastly the MDGs bring attention to measurements of wellbeing beyond income, and this attention alone
helps bring funding to achieving these goals.
The MDGs are also argued to help the human development by providing a measurement of
human development that is not based solely on income, prioritizing interventions, establishing
obtainable objectives with clear measurements of progress (though the data needed to measure
progress is difficult to obtain), and increasing the developed world’s involvement in worldwide poverty
reduction. The measurement of human development in the MDGs goes beyond income, and even just
basic health and education, to include gender and reproductive rights, environmental sustainability and
spread of technology. Prioritizing interventions helps developing countries with limited resources make
decisions about where to allocate their resources through which public policies. The MDGs also
strengthen the commitment of developed countries to helping developing countries, and encourage the
flow of aid and information sharing. The joint responsibility of developing and developed nations for
achieving the MDGs increases the likelihood of their success, which is reinforced by their 189-country
support (the MDGs are the most broadly supported poverty reduction targets ever set by the world).
Progress
Progress towards reaching the goals has been uneven. Some countries have achieved many of the goals,
while others are not on track to realize any. The major countries that have been achieving their goals
include China (whose poverty population has reduced from 452 million to 278 million) and India due to
clear internal and external factors of population and economic development. However, areas needing
the most reduction, such as the Sub-Saharan Africa regions have yet to make any drastic changes in
improving their quality of life. In the same time as China, the Sub-Saharan Africa reduced their poverty
about one percent, and are at a major risk of not meeting the MDGs by 2015. Fundamental issues will
determine whether or not the MDGs are achieved, namely gender centered issues and the divide
between the humanitarian and development agendas and economic growth.
Achieving the MDGs does not depend on economic growth alone and expensive solutions. In the case of
MDG 4, some developing countries like Bangladesh have shown that it is possible to reduce child
mortality with only modest growth with inexpensive but effective interventions, such as measles
immunisation. It has also been found that total government expenditure would not, in most cases, be
enough to meet the agreed spending targets in a number of sectors highlighted by the MDGs.
Goal 8 of the MDGs is unique in the sense that it focuses on donor government commitments and
achievements, rather than successes in the developing world. The Commitment to Development Index,
published annually by the Center for Global Development is often considered to be the numerical
targeting indicator for the 8th MDG. It is a more comprehensive measure of donor progress than simply
Official Development Assistance as it takes into account policies on a number of indicators that affect
developing countries such as trade, migration, and investment.
To accelerate progress towards the MDGs, the G-8 Finance Ministers met in London in June 2005 and
reached an agreement to provide enough funds to the World Bank, the IMF, and the African
Development Bank to cancel an additional $40–55 billion debt owed by members of the Heavily
Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC). This would allow impoverished countries to re-channel the resources
saved from the forgiven debt to social programs for improving health and education and for alleviating
poverty.
Yet, as 2015 approaches, increasing global uncertainties such as the economic crisis and climate change
have led to an opportunity to rethink the MDG approach to development policy. The 'After 2015' debate
is about questioning the value of an MDG-type, target-based approach to international development,
about progress so far on poverty reduction, about looking to an uncertain future and exploring what
kind of system is needed after the MDG deadline has passed.
Related organizations
The United Nations Millennium Campaign is a UNDP campaign unit to increase support to achieve the
Millennium Development Goals and seek a coalition of partners for action. The Millennium Campaign
targets intergovernmental, government, civil society organizations and media at both global and
regional levels.
The Millennium Promise Alliance, Inc., or Millennium Promise, is a U.S.-based non-profit organization
dedicated to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals and founded in 2005 by renowned
international economist and Special Advisor on the MDGs to the UN Secretary General, Professor Jeffrey
Sachs, and Wall Street leader and philanthropist, Ray Chambers. Millennium Promise coordinates a
project, the Millennium Villages Project, in partnership with Columbia University's Earth Institute and
the UNDP that aims to demonstrate the feasibility of achieving the Goals through an integrated and
community-led approach to holistic development. The Millennium Villages Project currently operates in
14 sites across 10 countries in sub-Saharan Africa.
The Global Poverty Project is an international education and advocacy organisation using its multimedia
presentation 1.4 Billion Reasons to educate people about the Millennium Development Goals and our
capacity to end extreme poverty within a generation. They travel to workplaces, schools, universities,
community groups and churches around Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United
States to equip people with the knowledge and resources they need to encourage the achievement of
the MDGs.
The Micah Challenge is an international campaign that encourages Christians to support the Millennium
Development Goals. Their aim is to "encourage our leaders to halve global poverty by 2015."
8 Visions of Hope is a global art project that explores and shows how art, culture, artists & musicians as
positive change agents can help in the realization of the eight UN Millennium Development Goals.
The Development Education Unit of Future Worlds Center envisions, designs and implements
development education awareness campaigns, trainings, conferences and resources since 2005.