Random Quotes

“I have achieved a lot: organising women’s self-help groups, getting the children to attend school, and providing basic needs such as water, electricity and street lights. Even men could not have done so much. ”

— member of a women’s group supported by CWS in Tamil Nadu

MDGs

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)

The international framework for addressing global poverty.

In 2000, all UN member states, including New Zealand, signed up to the 8 Millennium Development Goals. Each has measurable targets for 2015. Progress has been uneven. Some countries have achieved major successes in reducing poverty, improving school enrolment and child health, expanding access to clean water, and fighting disease while in others targets will be missed unless additional action is taken.  

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon believes progress is too slow. “If we fail, the dangers in the world – instability, violence, epidemic diseases, environmental degradation, runaway population growth – will all be multiplied.”

GOAL 1: ERADICATE EXTREME POVERTY & HUNGER

  • Halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people whose income is less than $1 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

GOAL 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

GOAL 3: PROMOTE GENDER EQUALITY AND EMPOWER WOMEN

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

 

GOAL 4: REDUCE CHILD MORTALITY

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

 

GOAL 5: IMPROVE MATERNAL HEALTH

  • Reduce by three quarters the maternal mortality ratio
  • Achieve universal access to reproductive health

GOAL 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

GOAL 7: ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY

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

GOAL 8: GLOBAL PARTNERSHIP

  • Develop further an open, rule based, predictable, non discriminatory trading and financial system
  • Address the special needs of least developed countries, landlocked countries and small island developing states
  • Deal comprehensively with developing countries’ debt
  • In cooperation with pharmaceutical companies, provide access to affordable essential drugs in developing countries
  • In cooperation with the private sector, make available benefits of new technologies, especially ICTs
Source: UNDP

UNDP Brazil

Check out the UN’s Millennium Development Goals website for more information on the goals, progress reports and international action.

 

CWS has prepared a resource for young people on the issues. Download from our resources/youth section