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The Millennium Development Goals are eight goals that 189 United Nations member states have agreed to try to achieve by the year 2015.

The Millennium Development Goals derive from earlier 'international development goals'^[1], and were officially established at the Millennium Summit in 2000, where 189 world leaders adopted the United Nations Millennium Declaration, from which the eight-goal action plan, the 'Millennium Development Goals', was particularly promoted.

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were developed out of the eight chapters of the United Nations Millennium Declaration, signed in September 2000. The MDGs were revised in October 2007 when the United Nations General Assembly adopted four additional targets. The eight goals and 21 targets include:

1. Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
   • Halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people whose income is less than one dollar 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
2. Achieve universal primary education
   • Ensure that, by 2015, children everywhere, boys and girls alike, will be able to 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, between 1990 and 2015, the under-five mortality rate.
5. Improve maternal health
   • Reduce by three quarters, between 1990 and 2015, the maternal mortality ratio.
   • Achieve, by 2015, universal access to reproductive health
6. Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases
   • Have halted by 2015 and begun to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS.
   • Achieve, by 2010, universal access to treatment for HIV/AIDS for all those who need it.
   • Have halted by 2015 and begun 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 biodiversity loss, achieving, by 2010, a significant reduction in the rate of loss
   • 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).
   • By 2020, to have achieved a significant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum-dwellers
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 special needs of the least developed countries. This includes tariff and quota free access for their exports; enhanced programme of debt relief for heavily indebted poor countries; and 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 the debt problems of developing countries through national and international measures in order to make debt sustainable in the long term.
   • 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

1. ^ OECD Development Co-operation Directorate - About the Millennium Development Goals

• Copenhagen Consensus
• International Finance Facility
• 2005 World Summit
• The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis & Malaria
• Global Goods Partners
• Economic development
• Anthony Asael
• Development assistance
• United Nations Millennium Project
• Millennium Promise
• HungryKids
• The End of Poverty

• United Nations Millennium Declaration
• The Millennium Goals (UN Site)
• BBC Summary 2005 of UN Millennium Goals
• Millennium Development Goals Indicators: MDG Dashboard (downloadable database)
• UN Stats Division - MDGs
• www.developmentgoals.org - World Bank