Why millennium development goals are important

The Millennium Development Goals are the international community's most broadly shared, comprehensive and focused framework for reducing poverty. Drawn from the Millennium Declaration, adopted and agreed to by all Governments in , the MDGs represent the commitments of United Nations Member States to reduce extreme poverty and its many manifestations: hunger, disease, gender inequality, lack of education and access to basic infrastructure, and environmental degradation.

The MDGs set quantitative objectives to be achieved by They also drive international development policy by spelling out the responsibilities of rich countries to support poor countries through aid, debt relief and improved market access. The Goals confirmed the importance of the United Nations, with its unique legitimacy and convening power, as the multilateral body best placed to build global coalitions and political action to address global problems.

At the Millennium Summit in , the International Conference on Financing for Development in Monterrey in , the UN World Summit in and other international events, world leaders pledged to establish national policies and strategies needed, and to provide the resources necessary to achieve the Goals. The MDG agenda has become a uniting and organizing principle for the work of the entire international system in the area of development -- a testament to the universal buy-in into the Goals.

The MDGs also provide a rationale for the United Nations family to work together more coherently and effectively, so as to give countries the support they need to achieve the Goals.

The stakes are high. If the MDGs are implemented in time in all parts of the globe, million fewer people will be living in extreme poverty and some million fewer will go hungry, while 30 million fewer children will die before their fifth birthday.

Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger Target for Halve the proportion of people living on less than a dollar a day and those who suffer from hunger.

Achieve universal primary education Target for Ensure that all boys and girls complete primary school. Promote gender equality and empower women Targets for and Eliminate gender disparities in primary and secondary education preferably by , and at all levels by Reduce child mortality Target for Reduce by two-thirds the mortality rate among children under five.

Improve maternal health Target for Reduce by three-quarters the ratio of women dying in childbirth. By , reduce by half the proportion of people without access to safe drinking water. By achieve significant improvement in the lives of at least million slum dwellers.

Develop a global partnership for development Targets: Develop further an open trading and financial system that includes a commitment to good governance, development and poverty reduction nationally and internationally. Develop decent and productive work for youth. In cooperation with pharmaceutical companies, provide access to affordable essential drugs in developing countries. Additional resources Trees, poverty and targets.

Was this page useful to you? Yes No. Did they really make a difference? The answer seems to be yes. There has been marked progress on poverty reduction, disease control, and increased access to schooling and infrastructure in the poorest countries of the world, especially in Africa, as a result of the MDGs. Global goals helped to galvanize a global effort. How did they do this? Why do goals matter? No one has ever put the case for goal-based success better than John F. Kennedy did 50 years ago.

Setting goals is important for many reasons. First, they are essential for social mobilization. The world needs to be oriented in one direction to fight poverty or to help achieve sustainable development, but it is very hard in our noisy, disparate, divided, crowded, congested, distracted, and often overwhelmed world to mount a consistent effort to achieve any of our common purposes.

Adopting global goals helps individuals, organizations, and governments worldwide to agree on the direction — essentially, to focus on what really matters for our future. A second function of goals is to create peer pressure.

With the adoption of the MDGs, political leaders were publicly and privately questioned on the steps they were taking to end extreme poverty. A third way that goals matter is to spur epistemic communities — networks of expertise, knowledge, and practice — into action around sustainable-development challenges. When bold goals are set, those communities of knowledge and practice come together to recommend practical pathways to achieve results.

Finally, goals mobilize stakeholder networks. Community leaders, politicians, government ministries, the scientific community, leading nongovernmental organizations, religious groups, international organizations, donor organizations, and foundations are all motivated to come together for a common purpose. That kind of multi-stakeholder process is essential for tackling the complex challenges of sustainable development and the fight against poverty, hunger, and disease.

Kennedy himself demonstrated leadership through goal setting a half-century ago in his quest for peace with the Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War.