Millennium Development Goals

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"MDG" redirects here. For other uses, see MDG (disambiguation).

The Millennium Development Goals are eight goals that all 191 United Nations member states have agreed to try to achieve by the year 2015.

1 Goals
2 Achieving the Millennium Development Goals
3 United States leadership
4 John Bolton's stance
5 References
6 See also
7 External links

[edit] Goals

The United Nations Millennium Declaration, signed in September 2000, commits the states to:

[edit] 1. Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger

Reduce by half the proportion of people living on less than one U.S. dollar a day.
Reduce by half the proportion of people who suffer from hunger.
Increase the amount of food for those who suffer from hunger.

[edit] 2. Achieve universal primary education

Ensure that all boys and girls complete a full course of primary schooling.
Increased enrollment must be accompanied by efforts to ensure that all children remain in school and receive a high-quality education

[edit] 3. Promote gender equality and empower women

Eliminate genders disparity in primary and secondary education preferably by 2005, and at all levels by 2015.

[edit] 4. Reduce child mortality

Reduce the mortality rate among children under five by two thirds.

[edit] 5. Improve maternal health

Reduce by three quarters the maternal mortality ratio.

[edit] 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.

[edit] 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.

[edit] 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.

[edit] Achieving the Millennium Development Goals

The Borgen Project <ref> The Borgen Project http://www.borgenproject.org</ref> estimates that $40-$60 billion a year is needed to achieve all eight Millennium Goals by 2015.

The Millennium Villages project of Millennium Promise offers a collaborative initiative to meet the Millennium Development Goals. The organization's mission is to end extreme poverty by 2025.

The United Nations Millennium Campaign supports citizens' efforts to hold governments accountable for the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals. <ref>Millennium Campaign Fund http://www.millenniumcampaign.org </ref>

[edit] United States leadership

As the largest national economy in the world, the United States' leadership and commitment is seen as vital in addressing world poverty and in implementing the Millennium Development Goals.

While the United States gives large amounts of aid abroad, its impact upon the Goals during George W. Bush's presidency has been mixed. Some have criticised the fact that many OECD nations, including key members such as the United States, have not delivered their promise of giving 0.7% of their GNP towards poverty reduction by the target year of 2015. Some nations' contributions have fallen far short of 0.7%, <ref>http://www.unmillenniumproject.org/documents/endorse_TI_19Jan05.pdf]</ref> while the US is specifically criticised for active endeavours to undermine the Millennium Development Goals. <ref>http://www.borgenproject.org/Ending_poverty.html]</ref>

[edit] John Bolton's stance

John R. Bolton began his term as the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations by providing a list of suggested amendments to the proposed agreement for the 2005 World Summit held in New York City in September 2005. These included stopping the UN use of the term "Millennium Development Goals". Although he succeeded with some of his amendments, he backtracked on his opposition to the use of the term "Millennium Development Goals", as this term is accepted by all other member states of the United Nations. <ref> The Borgen Project http://www.borgenproject.org </ref>