The Millennium Development Goals

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) form a blueprint for reducing extreme global poverty. The goals, agreed to by all the world's countries and leading development institutions, are set to be achieved by 2015. They have galvanized unprecedented efforts to meet the needs of the world's poorest.

Read more about: The goals | Successes | The final years | Three things you can do

The goals The eight goals include: Eradicate extreme poverty & hunger Achieve universal primary education Promote gender equality & the empowerment of women Reduce child mortality Reduce maternal mortality Combat HIV and AIDS, malaria and other diseases Ensure environmental sustainability Develop a global partnership for development

More on the MDGs How much do you know about the MDGs Take the UN's MGD Quiz World Vision Report Last Chance: Child Health and the Millennium Development Goals (PDF) World Vision Magazine Never Surrender

While all of the MDGs are crucial, as a child-focused organization, World Vision takes special interest in the pursuit of meeting goals 1, 4, 5, and 6.

There are just a few left to achieve these ambitious goals.

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Successes

A number of countries have made progress toward achieving certain goals. For instance:

• Brazil has decreased rates of growth stunting in its children, a key indicator of malnutrition.
• Primary education enrollment rates have increased by 16 percent since 2000 in sub-Saharan Africa.
• Malawi, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Bolivia, Eritrea, Laos and Nepal have more than halved their under-5 child mortality rates since 1990.
• African nations have met the UN goal to cut measles deaths by 90 percent — four years earlier than scheduled.

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The final years

While these and other achievements are certainly significant and well worth celebrating, there are many reasons to be concerned about progress towards 2015.

Most regions are off track in all the goals relating to health. Globally, 7.6 million children are still dying every year from mostly preventable diseases. In developing regions, maternal mortality has declined only marginally from 1990 levels.

Based on current trends, a number of key human development goals, particularly child and maternal health goals, are unlikely to be met on a global level.

Achieving the MDGs has been made more difficult by recent global crises. Food and fuel price hikes between 2005 and 2008, and the subsequent global financial crisis caused a lot of hardship in households already struggling to survive. For many people around the world, incomes dropped or disappeared and the cost of living increased.

With so much at stake, it's vital that countries act swiftly to recommit to these goals, and halt any threats to the achievements to date.

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Three things you can do

• Pray for the collective will to reach the Millennium Development Goals. Pray that countries with the power to act and save lives would do so.
• Add your name to the Child Health Now Petition. Tell President Obama that 21,000 preventable child deaths a day is unacceptable.
• Donate to provide life-saving medicines and supplies. Thanks to generous corporate partners, your gift will multiply to help even more children and their families around the world.

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