United Nations Development Programme
What are the Millennium Development Goals?
The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are eight goals to be achieved by 2015 that respond to the world's main development challenges. The MDGs are drawn from the actions and targets contained in the Millennium Declaration that was adopted by 189 nations-and signed by 147 heads of state and governments during the UN Millennium Summit in September 2000.
The 8 MDGs break down into 18 quantifiable targets that are measured by 48 indicators.
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
Progress so far.....
G1.Global poverty rates are falling, led by Asia. But millions more people have sunk deep into poverty in sub- Saharan Africa, where the poor are getting poorer.
Since 1990, millions more people are chronically hungry in sub- Saharan Africa and in Southern Asia, where half the children under age 5 are malnourished.
G2. Five developing regions are approaching universal enrolment. But in sub-Saharan Africa, fewer than two thirds of children are enrolled in primary school.
G3.Death rates in children under age 5 are dropping. But not fast enough. Eleven million children a year — 30,000 a day — die from preventable or treatable causes.
G4. More than half a million women die each year during pregnancy or childbirth. Twenty times that number suffer serious injury or disability. Some progress has been made in reducing maternal deaths in developing
regions, but not in the countries where giving birth is most risky.
G5. AIDS has become the leading cause of premature death in sub-Saharan Africa and the fourth largest killer worldwide. In the European countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and parts of Asia, HIV is spreading at an alarming rate.
G6. Malaria and tuberculosis together kill nearly as many people each year as AIDS, and represent a severe drain on national economies
Tuberculosis is on the rise, partly as a result of HIV/AIDS, though a new international protocol to detect and treat the disease is showing promise.
G7. Achieving the goal will require greater attention to the plight of the poor, whose day-to-day subsistence is often directly linked to the natural resources around them, and an unprecedented level of global cooperation.
Access to safe drinking water has increased, but half the developing world still lack toilets or other forms of basic sanitation. Nearly 1 billion people live in urban slums because the growth of the urban population is outpacing improvements in housing and the availability of productive jobs.
G8. The United Nations Millennium Declaration represents a global social compact: developing countries will do more to ensure their own development, and developed countries will support them through aid, debt relief and better opportunities for trade. Progress in each of these areas has already begun to yield results. But developed countries have fallen short of targets they have set for themselves.
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To make this call a great success all of us have a responsible role to play-
How?
By making ourselves healthy,
By making our family healthy,
By helping others become healthy.
change our unhealthy life style, food habits and stop abusing our mind & bodies.
When individuals are healthy , Nation becomes healthy.
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