UN Millennium Development Goals

The Millennium Declaration was adopted at the UN Millennium Summit in New York in 2000. The Declaration contains eight Millennium Development Goals, each addressing some of the world’s main development challenges.

Goal 1: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
Goal 2: Achieve universal primary education
Goal 3: Promote gender equality and empower women
Goal 4: Reduce child mortality
Goal 5: Improve maternal health
Goal 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases
Goal 7: Ensure environmental sustainability
Goal 8: Develop a Global Partnership for Development

The commitment is to achieve the Millennium Development Goals by 2015. Among the targets covered by these goals are:

• Reduce by half the proportion of people living on less than a dollar a day
• Reduce by half the proportion of people who suffer from hunger
• Ensure that all boys and girls complete a full course of primary schooling
• Eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education preferably by 2005, and at all levels by 2015
• Halt and begin to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS

These goals can only be achieved through sustainable economic and social development, where education, sustainable farming, food security and nutritional feeding are key success factors.