Millennium Development Goals

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are eight <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_development" title="International development" >international development</a> goals that all 193<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations" title="United Nations" >United Nations</a> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_member_states" title="United Nations member states" class="mw-redirect" >member states</a> and at least 23 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_organizations" title="International organizations" class="mw-redirect" >international organizations</a> have agreed to achieve by the year 2015. The goals are:

<ul >

<li >eradicating <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extreme_poverty" title="Extreme poverty" >extreme poverty and hunger</a>,</li>

<li >achieving universal primary education,</li>

<li >promoting gender equality and empowering women</li>

<li >reducing <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_mortality" title="Child mortality" >child mortality</a> rates,</li>

<li >improving maternal health,</li>

<li >Combating HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases,</li>

<li >ensuring environmental sustainability, and</li>

<li >developing a global partnership for development.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Development_Goals#cite_note-0" >[1]</a></li>

</ul>

Each of the goals have specific stated targets and dates for achieving those targets. To accelerate progress, the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G8" title="G8" >G8</a> Finance Ministers agreed in June 2005 to provide enough funds to the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Bank" title="World Bank" >World Bank</a>, the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Monetary_Fund" title="International Monetary Fund" >International Monetary Fund</a> (IMF), and the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_Development_Bank" title="African Development Bank" >African Development Bank</a> (ADB) to cancel an additional $40–55 billion debt owed by members of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavily_Indebted_Poor_Countries" title="Heavily Indebted Poor Countries" >Heavily Indebted Poor Countries</a> (HIPC) to 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.

Debate has surrounded adoption of the MDGs, focusing on lack of analysis and justification behind the chosen objectives, the difficulty or lack of measurements for some of the goals, and uneven progress towards reaching the goals, among other criticisms. Although developed countries' aid for achieving the MDGs have been rising over recent years, more than half the aid is towards debt relief owed by poor countries, with remaining aid money going towards natural disaster relief and military aid which does not further development.

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. A UN conference in September 2010 reviewed progress to date and concluded with the adoption of a global action plan to achieve the eight anti-poverty goals by their 2015 target date. There were also new commitments on women's and children's health, and new initiatives in the worldwide battle against poverty, hunger and disease.

Govenment organizations assist in achieving those goals, among them are the United Nations Millennium Campaign, the Millennium Promise Alliance, Inc., the Global Poverty Project, the Micah Challenge, and the 8 Visions of Hope global art project.

Millennium Development Goals

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