Serious Stuff: Millennium Development Goals
What are the targets of the MDGs?
The eight MDGs contain 21 quantifiable targets:
Goal 1: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger.
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Reduce by half the proportion of people living on less than a dollar a day
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Achieve full and productive employment and decent work for all, including women and young people
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Reduce by half the proportion of people who suffer from hunger
Goal 2: Achieve universal primary education
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Ensure that all boys and girls complete a full course of primary schooling
Goal 3: Promote gender equality and empower women
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Eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education preferably by 2005, and at all levels by 2015
Goal 4: Reduce child mortality
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Reduce by two thirds the mortality rate among children under five
Goal 5: Improve maternal health
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Reduce by three quarters the maternal mortality ratio
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Achieve, by 2015, universal access to reproductive health
Goal 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases
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Halt and begin to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS
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Achieve, by 2010, universal access to treatment for HIV/AIDS for all those who need it
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Halt and begin to reverse the incidence of malaria and other major diseases
Goal 7: Ensure environmental sustainability
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Integrate the principles of sustainable development into country policies and programmes; reverse loss of environmental resources
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Reduce biodiversity loss, achieving, by 2010, a significant reduction in the rate of loss
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Reduce by half the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water
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Achieve significant improvement in lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers, by 2020
Goal 8: Develop a global partnership for development
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Develop further an open, rule-based, predictable, non-discriminatory trading and financial system
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Address the special needs of the least developed countries
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Address the special needs of landlocked developing countries and small island developing States (through the Programme of Action for the Sustainable Development of Small Island Developing States and the outcome of the twenty-second special session of the General Assembly)
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Deal comprehensively with the debt problems of developing countries through national and international measures in order to make debt sustainable in the long term
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In cooperation with pharmaceutical companies, provide access to affordable essential drugs in developing countries
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In cooperation with the private sector, make available the benefits of new technologies, especially information and communications
The eight MDGs and their 21 targets are measured by 60 identified indicators. For the complete list of indicators, check out www.undp.org/mdg.
