Millennium development goals

for 2015
.
Millennium Development Goals

Background
The Millennium Summit - Sept 2000
 It adopted the UN Millennium Declaration
which set in motion a new global
partnership to reduce extreme poverty.
.
Outcomes of global conferences held during
the 1990s.
1995 Fourth World Conference on Women
1994 International Conference on Population
and Development
1992 United Nations Conference on
Environment and Development
The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)
evolved from the Millennium Declaration.
.
 Aimed at reducing

 Extreme Poverty

 Accomplishing a series of time-bound

goals with a deadline kept as the year

2015 known as the Millennium
Development Goals.
.The Millennium Development Goals, (MDGs), are the
most successful global anti-poverty push in history.

 Governments, international organizations, and civil

society groups around the world have helped to cut
in half the world’s extreme poverty rate.

 More girls are in school. Fewer children are dying.

The world continues to fight killer diseases, such as
malaria, tuberculosis and AIDS. There are about 500
days to accelerate action on issues such as hunger,
access to education, improved sanitation, maternal
health and gender equality.
The MDGs emphasized three
areas:

1. Human capital,
2. Infrastructure and
3. Human rights (social, economic
and political),
…… with the intent of increasing
living standards
 The 8 Goals
Goal 1: Eradicate Extreme Hunger and Poverty
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
 GOAL 1:
. ERADICATE
HUNGER
EXTREME POVERTY &

 Target 1.A:
Halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of
people whose income is less than $1.25 a day
 The target of reducing extreme poverty rates by half was
met five years ahead of the 2015 deadline.
 More than 1 billion people have been lifted out of extreme
poverty since 1990.
 In 1990, nearly half of the population in the developing
regions lived on less than $1.25 a day. This rate dropped to
14 per cent in 2015.
 At the global level more than 800 million people are still
living in extreme poverty.
.
.
Target 1.B:
Achieve full and productive employment and decent
work for all, including women and young people
Globally, 300 million workers lived below the $1.25 a day
poverty line in 2015.
The global employment-to-population ratio – the
proportion of the working-age population that is employed
– has fallen from 62 per cent in 1991 to 60 per cent in
2015, with an especially significant downturn during the
global economic crisis of 2008/2009.
Only four in ten young women and men aged 15-24 are
employed in 2015, compared with five in ten in 1991.
.
Target 1.C:
Halve, between 1990 and 2015, the
proportion of people who suffer from
hunger
The proportion of undernourished people in
the developing regions has fallen by almost
half since 1990.
Globally, about 795 million people are
estimated to be undernourished.
More than 90 million children under age five
are still undernourished and underweight.
 .
 GOAL 2:
ACHIEVE UNIVERSAL PRIMARY EDUCATION
 Target 2.A:
Ensure that, by 2015, children everywhere, boys and girls
alike, will be able to complete a full course of primary
schooling
 Enrolment in primary education in developing regions reached 91
per cent in 2015, up from 83 per cent in 2000.
 In 2015, 57 million children of primary school age were out of
school.
 Among youth aged 15 to 24, the literacy rate has improved globally
from 83 per cent to 91 per cent between 1990 and 2015, and the
gap between women and men has narrowed.
 In the developing regions, children in the poorest households are
four times as likely to be out of school as those in the richest
households.
 In countries affected by conflict, the proportion of out-of-school
children increased from 30 per cent in 1999 to 36 per cent in 2012.
.
 GOAL 3:
PROMOTE GENDER EQUALITY AND EMPOWER
WOMEN
 Target 3.A:
Eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary
education, preferably by 2005, and in all levels of education no
later than 2015
 The developing countries as a whole have achieved the target to
eliminate gender disparity in primary, secondary and tertiary
education.
 Globally, about three quarters of working-age men participate in the
labour force, compared to half of working-age women.
 Women make up 41 per cent of paid workers outside of agriculture,
an increase from 35 per cent in 1990.
 The average proportion of women in parliament has nearly doubled
over the past 20 years.
 Women continue to experience significant gaps in terms of poverty,
labour market and wages, as well as participation in private and
public decision-making.
 GOAL 4:
REDUCE CHILD MORTALITY

.
 Target 4.A:
Reduce by two thirds, between 1990 and 2015,
the under-five mortality rate
 Between 1990 and 2015, the global under-five mortality rate has
declined by more than half, dropping from 90 to 43 deaths per
1000 live births.
 Between 1990 and 2015, the number of deaths in children under five
worldwide declined from 12.7 million in 1990 to almost 6 million in
2015.
 Children in rural areas are about 1.7 times more likely to die before
their fifth birthday as those in urban areas.
 Children of mothers with secondary or higher education are almost
three times as likely to survive as children of moths with no
education.
 While Sub-Saharan Africa has the world’s highest child mortality rate,
the absolute decline in child mortality has been the largest over the
past two decades.
 Every day in 2015, 16,000 children under five continue to die, mostly
from preventable causes. Child survival must remain a focus of the
new sustainable development agenda.
.
 GOAL 5:
IMPROVE MATERNAL HEALTH- MMR
 Target 5.A:
Reduce by three quarters, between 1990 and 2015, the
maternal mortality ratio
 Since 1990, the maternal mortality ratio has been cut nearly
in half, and most of the reduction occurred since 2000.
 More than 71 per cent of births were assisted by skilled
health personnel globally in 2014, an increase from 59 per
cent in 1990.
 Globally, there were an estimated 289,000 maternal deaths in
2013.
 Target 5.B:
Achieve, by 2015, universal access to reproductive
health
 After years of slow progress, only half of pregnant women
receive the recommended amount of antenatal care.
.
GOAL 6:
COMBAT HIV/AIDS, MALARIA AND OTHER DISEASES
Target 6.A:
Have halted by 2015 and begun to reverse the spread
of HIV/AIDS
New HIV infections fell by approximately 40 per cent
between 2000 and 2013.
Globally, an estimated 35 million people were still living
with HIV in 2013.
More than 75 per cent of the new infections in 2013
occurred in 15 countries.
Worldwide, an estimated 0.8 per cent of adults aged 15 to
49 were living with HIV in 2013.
.
Target 6.B:
Achieve, by 2010, universal access to treatment
for HIV/AIDS for all those who need it
By June 2014, 13.6 million people living with HIV
were receiving antiretroviral therapy (ART) globally,
an increase from 800,000 in 2003.
In 2013 alone, the number of people receiving ART
rose by 1.9 million in the developing regions.
ART averted 7.6 million deaths from AIDS between
1995 and 2013.
Antiretroviral medicines to treat HIV were delivered
to 12.1 million people in developing regions in 2014.
.
 Target 6.C:
Have halted by 2015 and begun to reverse the
incidence of malaria and other major diseases
 Between 2000 and 2015, the substantial expansion of
malaria interventions led to a 58 per cent decline in malaria
mortality rates globally.
 Since 2000, over 6.2 million deaths from malaria were
averted, primarily in children under five years of age in Sub-
Saharan Africa.
 Due to increased funding, more children are sleeping under
insecticide-treated bed nets in sub-Saharan Africa.
 Tuberculosis prevention, diagnosis and treatment
interventions have saved some 37 million lives between
2000 and 2013.
.
 GOAL 7:
ENSURE ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY
 Target 7.A:
Integrate the principles of sustainable development into
country policies and programmes and reverse the loss of
environmental resources
 Forests are a safety net, especially for the poor, but they continue to
disappear at an alarming rate.
 An increase in afforestation, a slight decrease in deforestation and the
natural expansion of forests have reduced the net loss of forest from an
average of 8.3 million hectares annually in the 1990s to an average of
5.2 million hectares annually between 2000 and 2010.
 Between 1990 and 2012, global emissions of carbon dioxide
increased by over 50 per cent.
 Ozone-depleting substances have been virtually eliminated, and
the ozone layer is expected to recover by the middle of this century.
 Target 7.B:
Reduce biodiversity loss, achieving, by 2010, a

. significant reduction in the rate of loss

 Protected ecosystems covered 15.2 per cent of land and 8.4
per cent of coastal marine areas worldwide by 2014.
 Target 7.C:
Halve, by 2015, the proportion of the population
without sustainable access to safe drinking water and
basic sanitation
 The world has met the target of halving the proportion of
people without access to improved sources of water, five
years ahead of schedule.
 Between 1990 and 2015, 2.6 billion people gained access to
improved drinking water sources.
 Worldwide 2.1 billion people have gained access to improved
sanitation. Despite progress, 2.4 billion are still using
unimproved sanitation facilities, including 946 million people
who are still practicing open defecation.
.
Target 7.D:
Achieve, by 2020, a significant improvement
in the lives of at least 100 million slum
dwellers
Between 2000 and 2014, more than 320 million
people living in slums gained access to improved
water sources, improved sanitation facilities,
or durable or less crowded housing, thereby
exceeding the MDG target.
More than 880 million people are estimated to be
living in slums today, compared to 792 million in
2000 and 689 million in 1990.
.
GOAL 8:
DEVELOP A GLOBAL PARTNERSHIP FOR
DEVELOPMENT
Target 8.A:
Develop further an open, rule-based,
predictable, non-discriminatory trading
and financial system
Official development assistance from
developed countries increased by 66 per
cent in real terms between 2000 and 2014,
reaching $135.2 billion.
.
Target 8.B:
Address the special needs of least developed countries
In 2014, bilateral aid to least developed countries (LDCs)
fell 16 per cent in real terms, reaching $25 billion.
79 per cent of imports from developing countries enter
developed countries duty-free.
Target 8.C:
Address the special needs of landlocked developing
countries and small island developing States
Projections indicate that a 2.5 per cent increase in country
programmable aid in 2015, mainly through disbursements
by multilateral agencies, will most benefit least developed
and other low-income countries.
.
Target 8.D:
Deal comprehensively with the debt problems of
developing countries
In 2013, the debt burden of developing countries was
3.1 per cent, a major improvement over the 2000
figure of 12.0 per cent.
Target 8.E:
In cooperation with pharmaceutical companies,
provide access to affordable essential drugs in
developing countries
From 2007 to 2014, on average, generic medicines
were available in 58 per cent of public health facilities
in low-income and lower-middle-income countries.
.
Target 8.F:
In cooperation with the private sector, make
available benefits of new technologies,
especially information and communications
Globally, the proportion of the population covered
by a 2G mobile-cellular network grew from 58 per
cent in 2001 to 95 per cent in 2015.
Internet use penetration has grown from just over
6 per cent of the world’s population in 2000 to 43
per cent in 2015. 3.2 billion people are linked to a
global network of content and applications.
.
Monitoring aid delivery
The Integrated Implementation Framework
(IIF) was developed to record and monitor
financial as well as policy commitments made
in support of the MDGs by UN Member
States and other international stakeholders.
Progress made in achieving the goals:

The latest report on progress on the MDGs,

the Millennium Development Goals Report
2014 :

 1. The world has reduced extreme

poverty by half. In 1990, almost half of the
population in developing regions lived on less
than $1.25 a day. This rate dropped to 22 per
cent by 2010, reducing the number of people
living in extreme poverty by 700 million
.
 2. Efforts in the fight against malaria and
tuberculosis have shown results. Between
2000 and 2012, an estimated 3.3 million deaths
from malaria were averted due to the substantial
expansion of malaria interventions. About 90 per
cent of those averted deaths—3 million—were
children under the age of five living in sub-
Saharan Africa. The intensive efforts to fight
tuberculosis have saved an estimated 22 million
lives worldwide since 1995. If the trends continue,
the world will reach the MDG targets on malaria
and tuberculosis
 3. Access to an improved drinking
water source became a reality for 2.3
billion people. The target of halving the
proportion of people without access to an
improved drinking water source was
achieved in 2010, five years ahead of
schedule. In 2012, 89 per cent of the
world’s population had access to an
improved source, up from 76 per cent in
1990. Over 2.3 billion people gained access
to an improved source of drinking water
between 1990 and 2012.
.
4. Disparities in primary school
enrolment between boys and girls are
being eliminated in all developing
regions. Substantial gains have been made
towards reaching gender parity in school
enrolment at all levels of education in all
developing regions. By 2012, all developing
regions have achieved, or were close to
achieving, gender parity in primary education
 5. The political participation of women
has continued to increase. In January
2014, 46 countries boasted having more
than 30 per cent female members of
parliament in at least one chamber. More
women are now holding some of the so-
called “hard” ministerial portfolios—such as
Defense, Foreign Affairs and the
Environment.
.
 6. Development assistance rebounded, the
trading system stayed favorable for developing
countries and their debt burden remained
low. Official development assistance stood at
$134.8 billion in 2013, the highest level ever
recorded, after two years of declining volumes.
However, aid is shifting away from the poorest
countries. 80 per cent of imports from developing
countries entered developed countries duty-free
and tariffs remained at an all-time low. The debt
burden of developing countries remained
stable at about 3 per cent of export revenue..
 .
1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th 7th 8th
Complete 2/3rd 3/4th Halt Half
Half All eliminatio
DecreaseDebt
n

Half 90% Half+ Half- Halted Half

Achieved

Achieved
 Unfulfilled Objectives
 1. Hunger continues to decline, but immediate
additional efforts are needed to reach the MDG
target.

 2. Chronic under-nutrition among young children

declined, but one in four children is still affected.

 3. Child mortality has been almost halved, but more

progress is needed.

 4. Much more needs to be done to reduce maternal

mortality.
.
 5. Antiretroviral therapy (against HIV) is
saving lives and must be expanded further.

 6. Over a quarter of the world’s population

has gained access to improved sanitation
since 1990, yet a billion people still resort
to open defecation.
7. The World Bank reported that 1.01 billion people are
still living in extreme poverty, a number far beyond what
the United Nations itself deems acceptable.

 8. Making matters worse, this number is concentrated in

the most vulnerable parts of the world with as much as
48% of people in Sub-Saharan Africa living in extreme
poverty.

 With the recent Ebola outbreak in this region,

which has left over 4,400 people dead, it has
become more obvious that poverty in a country
can in fact be the deciding factor between life and
death. (2014).
Countries affected by Ebola
9. Still 842 million people in our world are
undernourished. Not only does poverty affect
those living in the most vulnerable areas of
the world, it also affects the most vulnerable
among us: the children.

10. The United Nations reports that 160

million children across the world are
undernourished. If children in developing
countries are not being given the chance to
grow up and develop sufficiently, this not only
affects these countries now, but also blights
their chances for a future void of poverty.
11. The other seven goals include achieving
universal primary education, promoting gender
equality and empowering women, reducing
child mortality, improving maternal health,
combating HIV/AIDS, malaria and other
diseases, ensuring environmental sustainability
and creating a global partnership to
development.
12. While improvements have been made,
the United Nation states that none of these
goals have been completely achieved, and
it seems highly likely that they will not be
achieved by their 2015 deadline.
Reasons for not achieving the
goals
1. Time lags in measuring progress and data

2. Researchers who worked with the UN high-level panel

on post-2015 development, note that more than 40
developing countries lack sufficient data to track
performance on extreme poverty and hunger.
Countries with the highest levels of maternal mortality,
malaria, and tuberculosis, meanwhile, often have the
least reliable data on these issues

3. Enduring reliance on household surveys, which

are expensive to carry out, of variable quality, and may
only capture the experiences of those most easily
reached and these are never carried out.
4. The goals do not place enough emphasis on
sustainable development, and are a minimalist
interpretation of the millennium declaration’s spirit and
ambition, leaving out crucial issues such as peace
and security.

5. While the MDGs have helped to focus attention, their

segmentation of the symptoms of poverty has
taken attention away from the ultimate root
causes of poverty.

6. MDG progress has too often failed to reach those

in most need. Whatever the improvement in national
averages, women and girls, those in extreme
poverty and those living in rural areas have usually
remained worse off than the rest.
7. Some issues, such as environmental
sustainability, required much greater attention,
resources and political commitment to achieve
progress,
 while other issues have been neglected because
they did not feature in the MDGs at all, such as
access to energy and the needs of people living
with disabilities.

8. The Central flaw of the MDGs was their almost

exclusive concentration on what had to be done
within individual developing countries, not what
action the world as a whole needed to take to
address shared problems.
.
 September, 2015
UN General Assembly adoption of the

2030 Agenda for Sustainable

Development
.
 the UN General Assembly formally adopted
the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable
Development, along with the Sustainable
Development Goals (SDG).
Formal adoption of the new framework,
Transforming Our World: the 2030 Agenda
for Sustainable Development, which is
composed of 17 goals and 169 targets, was
crafted to wipe out poverty, fight inequality
and tackle climate change over the next 15
years. This framework follows on the
previous Millennium Development Goals.
Suggestions for the MDG
Environmental sustainability must be at the heart of
the new framework. The world has so far failed
abysmally to make progress on MDG targets to protect
and preserve environmental resources and eco-
systems, the basis for many poor people’s livelihoods.

The new framework must also increase the focus on

eliminating extreme poverty, and explicitly target the
groups which have made least progress to date. This
will also mean broadening the global remit beyond the
current MDGs to tackle inequalities within and
between countries, which is essential to targeting the
root causes of poverty.
 New global goals should be based on the aggregation of
each country's targets rather than setting a world goal and
then retrofitting targets to country plans.
 New country-based goals must take into account the
context and starting point of each country's circumstances,
combined with bold yet practicable improvements.
 Picking targets that are more closely linked to things under
control of the relevant actors. For instance, health officials
and their partners in donor agencies have much more
scope to influence immunization rates than overall child
mortality rates.
 Global goals are useful in letting us know where we are
and as a signal for where we hope to be one day. Yet such
benchmarks are not necessarily useful either for making
funding decisions or for assigning praise or condemnation
to regimes or the development community as a whole.
Scorecards of progress should be able to
identify and celebrate success of those
countries ahead of the curve and being
creative in enhancing the lives of their
people.
.
2015 is the year when countries will shape
and adopt a new development agenda that
will build on the Millennium Development
Goals (MDGs). This is also the year when they
will reach a global agreement on climate
change at the Paris Climate Conference.
.
In 2000, 189 nations made a promise to free people from
extreme poverty and multiple deprivations. This pledge
became the eight Millennium Devleopment ...
UNAIDS/G. Pirozzi

The United Nations Millennium Development Goals are
eight goals that all 191 UN Member States have agreed to
try to achieve by the year 2015. The United Nations
Millennium Declaration, signed in September 2000
commits world leaders to combat poverty, hunger, disease,
illiteracy, environmental degradation, and discrimination
against women. The MDGs are derived from this
Declaration, and all have specific targets and indicators.
.
The eight Millennium Development Goals
(MDGs)
.
Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
2 Achieve universal primary education
3
Promote gender equality and empower wome
n
4 Reduce child mortality
5 Improve maternal health
6
Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases

7 Ensure environmental sustainability

.
What is the post-2015 development agenda?
The new post-2015 development agenda builds on the
Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), eight anti-poverty
targets that the world committed to achieving by 2015.
Enormous progress has been made towards the goals,
showing the value of a unifying agenda underpinned by goals
and targets. Yet despite this progress, the indignity of
poverty has not been ended for all.
The members of the United Nations are now in the process
of defining Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as part of
the new agenda that must finish the job of the MDGs and
leave no one behind.
This agenda will be adopted by Member States at the
Sustainable Development Summit in September 2015.
.
 What are the proposed 17 Sustainable Development Goals?
 End poverty in all its forms everywhere
 End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture
 Ensure healthy lives and promote wellbeing for all at all ages
 Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all
 Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls
 Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all
 Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all
 Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment, and
decent work for all
 Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialisation, and foster innovation
 Reduce inequality within and among countries
 Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable
 Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns
 Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts (taking note of agreements made by the
UNFCCC forum)
 Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development
 Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests,
combat desertification and halt and reverse land degradation, and halt biodiversity loss
 Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and
build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels
 Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalise the global partnership for sustainable
development
.
Critics of the MDGs complained of a lack of
analysis and justification behind the chosen
objectives, and the difficulty or lack of
measurements for some goals and uneven
progress, among others. Although developed
countries' aid for achieving the MDGs rose
during the challenge period, more than half
went for debt relief and much of the
remainder going towards natural disaster
relief and military aid, rather than further
development.
 The United Nations Millennium Campaign is a UNDP campaign to
increase support for the Millennium Development Goals. The
Millennium Campaign targets intergovernmental, government, civil

.
society organizations and media at global and regional levels.
 The Millennium Promise Alliance, Inc. (or simply the "Millennium
Promise") is a U.S.-based non-profit organization founded in 2005 by
Jeffrey Sachs and Ray Chambers.[70] Millennium Promise coordinates
the Millennium Villages Project in partnership with Columbia's
Earth Institute and UNDP; it aims to demonstrate MDG feasibility
through an integrated, community-led approach. As of 2012 the
Millennium Villages Project operated in 14 sites across 10 countries in
sub-Saharan Africa.[71]
 The Global Poverty Project[72] is an international education and
advocacy organisation that encourages MC support in English-
speaking countries.
 The Micah Challenge is an international campaign that encourages
Christians to support the Millennium Development Goals. Their aim is
to "encourage our leaders to halve global poverty by 2015". [73]
 The Youth in Action EU Programme "Cartoons in Action" project [74]
created animated videos about MDGs,[75] and a YouTube channel[76] and
videos about MDG targets using Arcade C64 videogames. [75][77]
 The World We Want 2015 is a platform and joint venture between the
United Nations and Civil Society Organizations that supports citizen
participation in defining a new global development framework to
.
The MDGs originated from the United
Nations Millennium Declaration.
Precursors
.
The Brahimi Report provided the basis of the goals in the
area of peace and security.[citation needed]
The Millennium Summit Declaration was, however, only part
of the origins of the MDGs. More ideas came from Adam
Figueroa,[citation needed]
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development
(OECD), the World Bank and the
International Monetary Fund. A series of UN‑led conferences
in the 1990s focused on issues such as children, nutrition,
human rights and women. The OECD criticized major donors
for reducing their levels of Official Development Assistance
(ODA). UN Secretary General Kofi Annan signed a report
titled, We the Peoples: The Role of the United Nations in the
21st Century. The OECD had formed its International
Development Goals (IDGs). The two efforts were combined
for the World Bank's 2001 meeting to form the MDGs
 Human capital, infrastructure and human rights
 The MDGs emphasized three areas: human capital, infrastructure and

.
human rights (social, economic and political), with the intent of increasing
living standards.[5] Human capital objectives include nutrition, healthcare
(including child mortality, HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, and
reproductive health) and education. Infrastructure objectives include
access to safe drinking water, energy and modern
information/communication technology; increased farm outputs using
sustainable practices; transportation; and environment. Human rights
objectives include empowering women, reducing violence, increasing
political voice, ensuring equal access to public services and increasing
security of property rights. The goals were intended to increase an
individual’s human capabilities and "advance the means to a productive
life". The MDGs emphasize that each nation's policies should be tailored to
that country's needs; therefore most policy suggestions are general.
 Partnership
 MDGs emphasize the role of developed countries in aiding developing
countries, as outlined in Goal Eight, which sets objectives and targets for
developed countries to achieve a "global partnership for development" by
supporting fair trade, debt relief, increasing aid, access to affordable
essential medicines and encouraging technology transfer. Thus developing
nations ostensibly became partners with developed nations in the struggle
to reduce world po
 Human capital, infrastructure and human rights
 The MDGs emphasized three areas: human capital, infrastructure and
human rights (social, economic and political), with the intent of

.
increasing living standards.[5] Human capital objectives include
nutrition, healthcare (including child mortality, HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis
and malaria, and reproductive health) and education. Infrastructure
objectives include access to safe drinking water, energy and modern
information/communication technology; increased farm outputs using
sustainable practices; transportation; and environment. Human rights
objectives include empowering women, reducing violence, increasing
political voice, ensuring equal access to public services and increasing
security of property rights. The goals were intended to increase an
individual’s human capabilities and "advance the means to a productive
life". The MDGs emphasize that each nation's policies should be tailored
to that country's needs; therefore most policy suggestions are general.
 Partnership
 MDGs emphasize the role of developed countries in aiding developing
countries, as outlined in Goal Eight, which sets objectives and targets
for developed countries to achieve a "global partnership for
development" by supporting fair trade, debt relief, increasing aid,
access to affordable essential medicines and encouraging technology
transfer. Thus developing nations ostensibly became partners with
developed nations in the struggle to reduce world po
.
Gaps
 General
 General criticisms include a perceived lack of analytical power and

.
justification behind the chosen objectives.[18]
 The MDGs lack strong objectives and indicators for within-country equality,
despite significant disparities in many developing nations. [18][19]
 Further critique of the MDGs is that the mechanism being used is that they
seek to introduce local change through external innovations supported by
external financing. The counter proposal being that these goals are better
achieved by community initiative, building from resources of solidarity and
local growth within existing cultural and government structures. [20][21]
iterative mobilization of local successes that have proven their
effectiveness can scale up to address the larger need through human
energy and existing resources using methodologies such as
Participatory Rural Appraisal, Asset Based Community Development, or
SEED-SCALE, originally developed under UNICEF and now tested in a
number of countries over two decades.[22]
 MDG 8 uniquely focuses on donor achievements, rather than development
successes. The Commitment to Development Index, published annually by
the Center for Global Development in Washington, D.C., is considered the
best numerical indicator for MDG 8.[23] It is a more comprehensive measure
of donor progress than official development assistance, as it takes into
account policies on a number of indicators that affect developing countries
such as trade, migration and investment.
 Alleged lack of legitimacy

.
 The entire MDG process has been accused of lacking legitimacy as a result
of failure to include, often, the voices of the very participants that the MDGs
seek to assist. The International Planning Committee for Food Sovereignty ,
in its Post 2015 thematic consultation document on MDG 1 states "The
major limitation of the MDGs by 2015 was the lack of political will to
implement due to the lack of ownership of the MDGs by the most affected
constituencies".[24]
 Human rights
 According to Deneulin & Shahani the MDGs underemphasize local
participation and empowerment (other than women’s empowerment). [18]
FIAN International, a human rights organization focusing on the right to
adequate food, contributed to the Post 2015 process by pointing out a lack
of: "primacy of human rights; qualifying policy coherence; and of human
rights based monitoring and accountability. "Without such accountability, no
substantial change in national and international policies can be expected." [25]
 Infrastructure
 The MDGs were attacked for insufficient emphasis on environmental
sustainability.[18] Thus, they do not capture all elements needed to achieve
the ideals set out in the Millennium Declaration. [19]
 Agriculture was not specifically mentioned in the MDGs even though most of
the world's poor are farmers. [
 Human capital
 MDG 2 focuses on primary education and emphasizes enrolment and completion. In some countries, primary enrolment
increased at the expense of achievement levels. In some cases, the emphasis on primary education has negatively affected
secondary and post-secondary education. [26]
 Amir Attaran argued that goals related to maternal mortality, malaria and tuberculosis are impossible to measure and that

.
current UN estimates lack scientific validity or are missing. Household surveys are the primary measure for the health MDGs.
Attaran attacked them as poor and duplicative measurements that consume limited resources. Furthermore, countries with the
highest levels of these conditions typically have the least reliable data collection. Attaran argued that without accurate
measures, it is impossible to determine the amount of progress, leaving MDGs as little more than a rhetorical call to arms. [27]
 MDG proponents such as McArthur and Sachs countered that setting goals is still valid despite measurement difficulties, as
they provide a political and operational framework to efforts. With an increase in the quantity and quality of healthcare systems
in developing countries, more data could be collected. [28] They asserted that non-health related MDGs were often well
measured, and that not all MDGs were made moot by lack of data.
 The attention to well being other than income helps bring funding to achieving MDGs. [18] Further MDGs prioritize interventions,
establish obtainable objectives with useful measurements of progress despite measurement issues and increased the developed
world’s involvement in worldwide poverty reduction. [29] MDGs include gender and reproductive rights, environmental
sustainability, and spread of technology. Prioritizing interventions helps developing countries with limited resources make
decisions about allocating their resources. MDGs also strengthen the commitment of developed countries and encourage aid
and information sharing.[18] The global commitment to the goals likely increases the likelihood of their success. They note that
MDGs are the most broadly supported poverty reduction targets in world history. [30]
 Achieving the MDGs does not depend on economic growth alone. In the case of MDG 4, developing countries such as
Bangladesh have shown that it is possible to reduce child mortality with only modest growth with inexpensive yet effective
interventions, such as measles immunisation.[31] Still, government expenditure in many countries is not enough to meet the
agreed spending targets.[32] Research on health systems suggests that a "one size fits all" model will not sufficiently respond to
the individual healthcare profiles of developing countries; however, the study found a common set of constraints in scaling up
international health, including the lack of absorptive capacity, weak health systems, human resource limitations, and high
costs. The study argued that the emphasis on coverage obscures the measures required for expanding health care. These
measures include political, organizational, and functional dimensions of scaling up, and the need to nurture local organizations.
[33]

 Fundamental issues such as gender, the divide between the humanitarian and development agendas and economic growth will
determine whether or not the MDGs are achieved, according to researchers at the Overseas Development Institute (ODI).
[34][35][36]

 According to D+C Development and Cooperation magazine, MDG 7 is still far from being reached. Since national governments
often cannot provide the necessary infrastructure, civil society in some countries organised and worked on sanitation. [37] For
instance, in Ghana an umbrella organisation called CONIWAS (Coalition of NGOs in Water and Sanitation), enlisted more than
70 member organisations to provide access to water and sanitation.
 The International Health Partnership (IHP+) aimed to accelerate MDG progress by applying international principles for
effective aid and development in the health sector. In developing countries, significant funding for health came from external
sources requiring governments to coordinate with international development partners. As partner numbers increased
 Equity
 Further developments in rethinking strategies and approaches to

. achieving the MDGs include research by the

Overseas Development Institute into the role of equity.[39]
Researchers at the ODI argued that progress could be accelerated
due to recent breakthroughs in the role equity plays in creating a
virtuous circle where rising equity ensures the poor participate in
their country's development and creates reductions in poverty and
financial stability.[39] Yet equity should not be understood purely as
economic, but also as political. Examples abound, including Brazil's
cash transfers, Uganda's eliminations of user fees and the
subsequent huge increase in visits from the very poorest or else
Mauritius's dual-track approach to liberalisation (inclusive growth
and inclusive development) aiding it on its road into the
World Trade Organization.[39] Researchers at the ODI thus propose
equity be measured in league tables in order to provide a clearer
insight into how MDGs can be achieved more quickly; the ODI is
working with partners to put forward league tables at the 2010 MDG
review meeting.[39]
 The effects of increasing drug use were noted by the International
Journal of Drug Policy as a deterrent to the goal of the MDGs.[
 Women's issues
 Kabeer, Grown and Heyzer argued that increased focus on gender issues would

.
accelerate MDG progress. Kabeer claimed that empowering women through
access to paid work would help reduce child mortality.[41] In South Asian countries
babies often suffered from low birth weight and high mortality due to limited
access to healthcare and maternal malnutrition. Paid work could increase
women's access to health care and better nutrition, reducing child mortality.
Increasing female education and workforce participation increased these effects.
Improved economic opportunities for women also decreased participation in the
sex market, which decreased the spread of AIDS, MDG 6A.[41]
 Grown asserted that although the resources, technology and knowledge existed to
decrease poverty through improving gender equality, the political will was
missing.[42] She argued that if donor and developing countries focused on seven
"priority areas": increasing girls’ completion of secondary school, guaranteeing
sexual and reproductive health rights, improving infrastructure to ease women’s
and girl’s time burdens, guaranteeing women’s property rights, reducing gender
inequalities in employment, increasing seats held by women in government, and
combating violence against women, great progress could be made towards the
MDGs.[42]
 Kabeer and Heyzer believe that the current MDGs targets do not place enough
emphasis on tracking gender inequalities in poverty reduction and employment as
there are only gender goals relating to health, education, and political
representation.[41][43] To encourage women’s empowerment and progress towards
the MDGs, increased emphasis should be placed on gender mainstreaming
Progress
 Progress towards reaching the goals has been uneven across countries. Brazil
achieved many of the goals,[44] while others, such as Benin, are not on track to
realize any.[45] The major successful countries include China (whose
poverty population declined from 452 million to 278 million) and India.[46] The
World Bank estimated that MDG 1A (halving the proportion of people living on
less than $1 a day) was achieved in 2008 mainly due to the results from these
two countries and East Asia.[47]
 In the early 1990s Nepal was one of the world's poorest countries and
remains South Asia's poorest country. Doubling health spending and
concentrating on its poorest areas halved maternal mortality between 1998
and 2006. Its Multidimensional Poverty Index has seen the largest falls of any
tracked country. Bangladesh has made some of the greatest improvements in
infant and maternal mortality ever seen, despite modest income growth. [48]
 Between 1990 and 2010 the population living on less than $1.25 a day in
developing countries halved to 21%, or 1.2 billion people, achieving MDG1A
before the target date, although the biggest decline was in China, which took
no notice of the goal. However, the child mortality and maternal mortality are
down by less than half. Sanitation and education targets will also be missed. [48]
 Multilateral debt reduction
 G‑8 Finance Ministers met in London in June 2005 in preparation for the
Gleneagles Summit in July and agreed to provide enough funds to the World
Bank, IMF and the African Development Bank (AfDB) to cancel an
additional the remaining HIPC multilateral debt ($40 to $55 billion).
Recipients would theoretically re-channel debt payments to health and
education.[49]
 The Gleaneagles plan became the Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative (MDRI).
Countries became eligible once their lending agency confirmed that the
countries had continued to maintain the reforms they had implemented. [49]
 While the World Bank and AfDB limited MDRI to countries that complete
the HIPC program, the IMF's eligibility criteria were slightly less restrictive
so as to comply with the IMF's unique "uniform treatment" requirement.
Instead of limiting eligibility to HIPC countries, any country with
per capita income of $380 or less qualified for debt cancellation. The IMF
adopted the $380 threshold because it closely approximated the HIPC
threshold