United Nations

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United Nations
Millennium Development Goals
Richmond Vale Academy - Africa DI Program
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In September 2000 149 Heads of State and
Government and high-ranking officials from over
40 other countries came together at the
headquarters of the UN in New York to adopt the
United Nations Millennium Declaration, committing
their nations to a new global partnership to
reduce extreme poverty and to set out a series of
time-bound targets with a deadline of 2015. That
have become known as the Millennium Development
Goals.
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The Millennium Development Goals

• Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger.
• Achieve universal primary education.
• Promote gender equality and empower woman.
• Reduce child mortality.
• Improve maternal health.
• Combat HIV/AIDS, Malaria and other diseases.
• Ensure environmental sustainability.
• Develop a global partnership for development.

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End poverty and hunger.

• Target 1
• Halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of
  people whose income is less than 1 a day.
• Target 2
• Achieve full and productive employment and
  decent work for all, including women and young
  people.
• Target 3
• Halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of
  people who suffer from hunger.

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Where do we stand? The MDG target of cutting in
half the proportion of people in the developing
world living on less than 1 a day by 2015
remains within reach for the world as a whole.
However, this achievement will be largely the
result of extraordinary success in Asia, mostly
East Asia. In contrast, little progress has been
made in reducing extreme poverty in sub-Saharan
Africa.
Quick facts. The World Banks latest estimates
show that 1.4 billion people in developing
countries were living in extreme poverty in
2005. Recent increases in the price of food have
had a direct and adverse effect on the poor and
are expected to push many more people an
estimated 100 million into absolute
poverty. The proportion of children under five
who are undernourished declined from 33 per cent
in 1990 to 26 per cent in 2006. However, by 2006,
the number of children in developing countries
who were underweight still exceeded 140 million.
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What has worked. Microfinance has helped many
of the worlds poor to increase their incomes
through self-employment and empowerment. For the
past two years, Malawis voucher programme for
fertilizers and seeds has helped double its
agricultural productivity, turning the country
into a net food exporter after decades of famine
as a perennial food importer. NERICA - or the
New Rice for Africa, a crossbreed of Asian and
African rice varieties - can produce up to 200
per cent more than traditional crops and is
expected to generate savings of several million
dollars per year in the cost of rice imports in
several pilot countries. Since 2002, the courier
delivery company TNT and the World Food Programme
(WFP) have developed a partnership called Moving
the World to help fight global hunger.
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Achieve universal primary education.

• Target
• Ensure that, by 2015, children everywhere, boys
  and girls alike, will be able to complete a full
  course of primary schooling.

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Where do we stand? In all regions, inequalities
in access to education continue to pose major
barriers to fully attaining the MDG 2 target,
projections suggest that without further
acceleration, 58 out of the 86 countries that
have not yet reached universal primary education
will not achieve it by 2015.
Quick facts. Globally, 570 million children are
enrolled in school. The number of children of
primary school age who were out of school fell
from 103 million in 1999 to 73 million in 2006.
In that year, primary school enrolment in
developing countries reached 88 per cent on
average, up from 83 per cent in 2000. In
sub-Saharan Africa, the net primary school
enrolment ratio has only recently reached 71 per
cent, even after a significant jump in enrolment
that began in 2000. Around 38 million children of
primary school age in this region are still out
of school. In Southern Asia, the enrolment ratio
has climbed above 90 per cent, yet more than 18
million children of primary school age are not
enrolled.
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What has worked. Burundi, Democratic Republic
of the Congo, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi,
Mozambique, Tanzania and Uganda have abolished
school fees, which has led to a surge in
enrolment. In Haiti, collaboration between the
Government, UN agencies and NGOs has changed the
lives of 4,300 of the country's poorest children,
thanks to an education project that provided
school materials and supplies to 33 schools
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Promote gender equality and empower woman.

• Target
• Eliminate gender disparity in primary and
  secondary education, preferably by 2005, and in
  all levels of education no later than 2015.

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Where do we stand? School doors have swung open
for girls in nearly all regions, as many
countries have successfully promoted girls
education as part of their efforts to boost
overall enrolment. Girls primary enrolment
increased more than boys in all developing
regions between 2000 and 2006. While there is
evidence of some success, especially in enrolment
at the primary level, gender disparities in
education are clearly evident in some regions.
Sub-Saharan Africa, Oceania and Western Asia have
the largest gender gaps in primary enrolment.
Quick facts. Of the 113 countries that failed to
achieve gender parity in primary and secondary
school enrolment by the target date of 2005, only
18 are likely to achieve the goal by 2015. Girls
account for 55 per cent of the out-of-school
population. Since 2000, the proportion of seats
for women in parliaments only increased from 13.5
to 17.9 per cent. Women occupy at least 30 per
cent of parliamentary seats in 20 countries,
although none of these countries are in Asia.
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What has worked. Rwandas constitution, adopted
in 2003, guarantees a minimum of 30 per cent of
parliamentary seats and other leadership
positions to women. The Bill and Melinda Gates
Foundation recently awarded 19 million to a
UNDP-supported project using low-cost technology
to boost the productivity and income of women
farmers in Burkina Faso, Mali and Senegal, three
Least Developed Countries in Africa. Since
1991, a growing number of womens groups and
civil society organizations from more than one
hundred countries have taken part in the campaign
16 Days of Activism against Gender Violence,
tackling all forms of violence against women,
such as domestic violence, sexual violence in
armed conflict, and female genital
mutilation/cutting.
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Reduce child mortality.

• Target Reduce by two thirds, between 1990 and
  2015, the under-five mortality rate.

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Where do we stand? In 2006, for the first time
since mortality data have been gathered, annual
deaths among children under five dipped below 10
million, to 9.7 million. This represents a 60 per
cent drop in the rate of child mortality since
1960. Nevertheless, millions of children continue
to die each year from preventable causes such as
pneumonia, diarrhea, malaria and measles.
Quick facts. Worldwide, deaths of children under
five years of age declined from 93 to 72 deaths
per 1,000 live births between 1990 and 2006. A
child born in a developing country is over 13
times more likely to die within the first five
years of life than a child born in an
industrialized country. Sub-Saharan Africa
accounts for about half the deaths of children
under five in the developing world. Between 1990
and 2006, about 27 countries the large majority
in sub-Saharan Africa made no progress in
reducing childhood deaths.
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What has worked. Through the Nothing but Nets
campaign, initiated by a variety of foundations
and corporate, sports-related and religious
partners, approximately 18 million was raised to
purchase and distribute 730,000
insecticide-treated anti-malaria nets in Africa
since the campaigns inception in May 2006. The
Measles Initiative led by the American Red
Cross, the UN Foundation, WHO, UNICEF, and the
United States Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention has become one of the most
successful global health initiatives in the
world. Maternal and neonatal tetanus is a
disease that kills tens of thousands of newborns
each year, most of them in developing countries.
Viet Nam's Ministry of Health has eliminated
maternal and neonatal tetanus, with support from
WHO and UNICEF.
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Improve maternal health.

• Target 1 Reduce by three quarters the maternal
  mortality ratio.
• Target 2Achieve universal access to
  reproductive health.

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Where do we stand? Maternal mortality remains
unacceptably high across much of the developing
world. Fully achieving the Goal 5 target of
reducing by three quarters, between 1990 and
2015, the maternal mortality ratio remains a
challenging task it is the area of least
progress among all the MDGs.
Quick facts. Maternal mortality shows the
greatest disparity among countries in
sub-Saharan Africa, a womans risk of dying from
treatable or preventable complications of
pregnancy and childbirth over the course of her
lifetime is 1 in 22, compared to 1 in 7,300 in
developed regions. The risk of a woman dying from
pregnancy-related causes during her lifetime is
about 1 in 7 in Niger compared to 1 in 17,400 in
Sweden. Every year, more than 1 million children
are left motherless and vulnerable because of
maternal death. Children who have lost their
mothers are up to 10 times more likely to die
prematurely than those who have not.
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What has worked. In countries such as Jamaica,
Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Tunisia,
significant declines in maternal mortality have
occurred as more women have gained access to
family planning and skilled birth attendance with
backup emergency obstetric care. Finding trained
health workers to deliver emergency obstetric
care is often a challenge in the developing
worlds rural areas. UNFPA, in partnership with
the Tigray regional health bureau (Ethiopia) and
Médecins du Monde, an international NGO, has
piloted an innovative project to train mid-level
health officers so that they can provide
life-saving emergency surgery at rural hospitals,
where doctors are scarce. Galvanizing support
for maternal health is the goal of the UNFPA-led
Campaign to End Fistula, which in 2006 worked in
40 countries in sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia
and the Arab States.
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Combat HIV/AIDS, Malaria and other diseases.

• Target 1
• Have halted by 2015 and begun to reverse the
  spread of HIV/AIDS.
• Target 2
• Achieve, by 2010, universal access to treatment
  for HIV/AIDS for all those who need it.
• Target 3
• Have halted by 2015 and begun to reverse the
  incidence of malaria and other major diseases.

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Where do we stand? Most countries are
struggling to meet the Goal 6 targets of
achieving universal access to treatment for
HIV/AIDS by 2010 and of halting and reversing the
spread of HIV/AIDS by 2015. Estimates of the
number of people newly infected with HIV declined
from 3 million in 2001 to 2.7 million in 2007.
Quick facts. Every day, nearly 7,500 people are
infected with HIV and 5,500 die from AIDS.
Globally, an estimated 33 million people were
living with HIV/AIDS in 2007. The number of
people living with HIV rose from an estimated
29.5 million in 2001 to 33 million in 2007. The
vast majority of those living with HIV are in
sub-Saharan Africa, where about 60 per cent of
adults living with HIV in 2007 were
women. Malaria kills over 1 million people
annually, 80 per cent of whom are children under
five in sub-Saharan Africa. There continue to be
between 350 million and 500 million cases of
malaria worldwide each year. An estimated 250
million anti-malaria insecticide-treated bed nets
are required to reach 80 per cent coverage in
sub-Saharan Africa. To date, the funds committed
will provide only 100 million nets less than
one half of the requirement.
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What has worked. As a result of the expansion
of antiretroviral treatment services, made
possible by increased international funding, the
number of people who die from AIDS has started to
decline, from 2.2 million in 2005 to 2 million in
2007. From 2005 to 2007, the percentage of
HIV-positive pregnant women receiving
antiretroviral drugs to prevent mother-to-child
transmission (PMTCT) rose from 14 to 33 per cent.
In this same period, the number of new infections
among children fell from 410,000 to 370,000.
The Global Polio Eradication Initiative is the
largest international public health effort in
history. WHO, UNICEF, the United States Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention, Rotary
International, the Gates Foundation, the Global
Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization and donor
governments jointly collaborate on this
initiative, which has led to a rapid decline in
transmission of the wild polio virus.
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Ensure environmental sustainability.

• Target 1
• Integrate the principles of sustainable
  development into country policies and programmes
  and reverse the loss of environmental resources.
• Target 2
• Reduce biodiversity loss, achieving, by 2010, a
  significant reduction in the rate of loss.
• Target 3
• Halve, by 2015, the proportion of the population
  without sustainable access to safe drinking water
  and basic sanitation.
• Target 4
• By 2020, to have achieved a significant
  improvement in the lives of at least 100 million
  slum dwellers.

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Where do we stand? Climate change is
intensifying disasters, including extreme weather
events, storm surges, floods and droughts. It is
vital that development strategies incorporate
measures to strengthen community resilience
through economic development, income
diversification, strengthened natural/infrastructu
ral defenses and disaster preparedness.
Quick facts. Some 1.6 billion people have
gained access to safe drinking water since 1990.
At this rate, the world is expected to meet the
MDG target on drinking water. But about 1 billion
people still do not have access to safe drinking
water, and 2.5 billion lack access to basic
sanitation services. Currently, only 22 per cent
of the worlds fisheries are sustainable,
compared to 40 per cent in 1975. Despite their
importance to the sustainability of fish stocks
and coastal livelihoods, only 0.7 per cent of the
worlds oceans about 2 million square
kilometers were put under protection. Some 2.4
billion people live without access to modern
cooking and heating services, and 1.6 billion
have no access to electricity.
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What has worked. The 1987 Montreal Protocol has
resulted in the phasing out of over 96 per cent
of all ozone-depleting substances (ODSs). This
quantitative success in the protection of the
ozone layer has also achieved important climate
benefits because many ozone depleting substances
controlled under the Protocol are also potent
greenhouse gases. Decades ago, Pakistans Forest
Department began planting rows of trees (called
shelterbelts) along roadsides and canals in the
Thal region to protect them against wind-borne
sand. This initiative aimed to convert the vast
sand-dune-covered Thal Desert into productive
agricultural land, enhancing food production and
improving living conditions through job
creation. Marine Protected Areas (MPAs)
contribute to the conservation of ocean species
and habitat, and aid in the development of
sustainable fisheries.
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Develop a global partnership for development.

• Target 1
• Address the special needs of least developed
  countries, landlocked countries and small island
  developing states.
• Target 2
• Develop further an open, rule-based,
  predictable, non-discriminatory trading and
  financial system.
• Target 3
• Deal comprehensively with developing countries
  debt.
• Target 4
• In cooperation with pharmaceutical companies,
  provide access to affordable essential drugs in
  developing countries.
• Target 5
• In cooperation with the private sector, make
  available benefits of new technologies,
  especially information and communications.

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Where do we stand? There is a large delivery
gap in meeting commitments towards the MDG target
of addressing the special needs of least
developed countries (LDCs), and to provide more
generous official development assistance (ODA)
for countries committed to poverty reduction.
Efforts to step up ODA have been set back. In
2007, the only countries to reach or exceed the
target of 0.7 per cent of gross national income
(GNI) were Denmark, Luxembourg, the Netherlands,
Norway and Sweden.
Quick facts. Official development assistance
(ODA) continued to drop from an all-time high of
107.1 billion in 2005, to 103.7 billion in
2007. Aid flows need to increase by 18 billion
per year to meet the promise made by the G8 in
2005 of doubling aid by 2010 an additional 50
billion annually in global aid, of which 25
billion would be for Africa. For the average
developing country, the burden of servicing
external debt fell from almost 13 per cent of
export earnings in 2000 to 7 per cent in 2006,
creating a more favorable environment for
investment and allowing them to allocate more
resources to reducing poverty. In developed
countries, 58 per cent of people used the
Internet in 2006, compared to 11 per cent in
developing countries and 1 per cent in the least
developed countries.
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What has worked. Tanzania used resources saved
through debt relief to abolish primary school
fees (in 2002), build 30,000 new classrooms and
1,000 schools, and hire 18,000 additional trained
teachers. The percentage of children enrolled in
mainland Tanzanias primary schools climbed from
58.7 per cent in 1990 to 94.8 per cent in
2006. Nigeria established in 2005 a Virtual
Poverty Fund to channel monies released by debt
relief towards poverty reduction and the other
MDGs. Mozambique used its debt service savings
to vaccinate one million children against
tetanus, whooping cough and diphtheria, to fight
AIDS, and to build and electrify
schools. Through an inter-agency UN programme
called Integrated Framework for Trade-related
Technical Assistance, support has been provided
to least developed countries in making trade
capacity an integral part of both national
poverty reduction and development plans.
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Malawi
Off track.
Possible to achieve if some changes are made.
Possible to achieve if some changes are made.
Possible to achieve if some changes are made.
Off track.
Possible to achieve if some changes are made.
Off track.
Insufficient information.
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Mozambique
Possible to achieve if some changes are made.
Off track.
Off track.
Very likely to be achieved, on track.
Very likely to be achieved, on track.
Off track.
Off track.
Insufficient information.
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South Africa
Very likely to be achieved, on track.
Very likely to be achieved, on track.
Very likely to be achieved, on track.
Possible to achieve if some changes are made.
Possible to achieve if some changes are made.
Possible to achieve if some changes are made.
Very likely to be achieved, on track.
Very likely to be achieved, on track.