The Millennium Development Goals
What are the MDGs?
In 2000, nearly 200 leaders from around the world adopted the Millennium Declaration and committed themselves to achieving a set of eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015. The MDGs outline a comprehensive and ambitious plan to end extreme poverty and hunger, ensure that all boys and girls complete primary school, promote gender equality, improve the health of children and mothers, reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS and other diseases, and protect the environment.
The 8 goals
1. Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
2. Achieve universal primary education
3. Promote gender equality and empower women
4. Reduce child mortality
5. Improve maternal health
6. Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases
7. Ensure environmental sustainability
8. Develop a global partnership for development
The MDGs and UNICEF
Though the Goals are for all humankind, they are primarily about children. Why:
- Because six of the eight goals relate directly to children. Meeting the last two will also make critical improvements in their lives.
- Because meeting the Goals is most critical for children. Children are most vulnerable when people lack essentials like food, water, sanitation and health care. They are the first to die when basic needs are not met.
- Because children have rights. Each child is born with the right to survival, food and nutrition, health and shelter, an education, and to participation, equality and protection – rights agreed to, among others, in the 1989 international human rights treaty the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The Convention has been ratified by 192 states, every country in the world except two. The Millennium Development Goals must be met for these basic human rights to be realized.
- Because reducing poverty starts with children. Helping children reach their full potential is also investing in the very progress of humanity. For it is in the crucial first years that interventions make the biggest difference in a child’s physical, intellectual and emotional development. Investing in children means achieving development goals faster, as children constitute a large percentage of the world’s poor.
That’s where UNICEF comes in. UNICEF is the world's leading effective development and emergency organisation working globally to support children. Along with other UN agencies and global partners, UNICEF has taken the Goals as part of its mandate. UNICEF is working with partners around the globe to make sure that achieving the MDGs becomes a reality.
Are we on track?
No. Although progress has been made toward achieving the Millennium Development Goals, many parts of the world are still far off track. In some countries, the quality of life for poor people is getting even worse. The consequences of not meeting the Goals will be suffered most by children. For example, if universal primary education is not achieved (MDG 2), millions of children will not be able to go to school and if changes aren't made to make clean water more accessible (MDG 7), children will continue to die from preventable diseases.
There is a lot of work to do, but experts agree, that meeting the Millennium Goals by 2015 is still achievable. Reaching them will require a stronger commitment and focus from all countries in order to bring about global development and peace.
For more information about UNICEF and the Millennium Development Goals, please contact us on 02 9261 2811.