Millennium Development Goals Part 1: What are They?!?

I am dedicating my first post to speak specifically on the Millennium Development Goals that originated from the Millennium Declaration produced by the United Nations. The Declaration believes that every one has rights and these rights include dignity, freedom, and equality. It also asserts that everyone has the right to a basic stand of living that includes freedom from hunger and violence, and encourages tolerance and solidarity. The MDGs were created in order to mobilize a solution to these ideas by creating targets a measurable indicators for the reduction of poverty in order to achieve the rights that were set forth in the Declaration in a timeline of fifteen years.

I am going to run this topic in a series of blog post because there is no way I can analyze all aspects of the MDGs in one blog post so prepare yourself! This first post will focus exclusively on what the Millennium Development Goals are and highlighting their targets. In later blog post I will begin to go more in depth on the status of each of these goals and also more into the debates that surround these goals!

The MDG was signed in September 2000, eight goals with 21 targets, and each has measurable indicators:

Goal 1: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger

Target 1A: Halve the proportion of people living on less than a $1 a day

Target 1B: Achieve Decent Employment for Women, Men, and Young People

Target 1C: Halve the proportion of people who suffer from hunger

Goal 2: Achieve universal primary education

Target 2A: By 2015 all children can complete a full course of primary schooling, girls and boys

Goal 3: Promote gender equality and empower women

Target 3A: Eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education preferably by 2005, and at all levels by 2015

Goal 4: Reduce child mortality rates

Target 4A: Reduce by two-thirds, between 1990 and 2015, the under-five morality rate

Goal 5: Improve maternal health

Target 5A: Reduce by three quarters, between 1990 and 2015, the maternal mortality ratio

Target 5B: Achieve, by 2015, a universal access to reproductive health

Goal 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases

Target 6A: Have halted by 2015 and begun to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS

Target 6B: Achieve, by 2010, universal access to treatment for HIV/AIDS for all those who need it

Target 6C: Have halted by 2015 and begun to reverse the incidence of malaria and other major diseases

Goal 7: Ensure environmental sustainability

Target 7A: Integrate the principles of sustainable development into country policies and programs; reverse loss of environmental resources

Target 7B: Reduce biodiversity loss, achieving by 2010 a significant reduction in the rate of loss

Target 7C: Halve, by 2015, the proportion of the population without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation

Target 7D: By 2020, to have achieved a significant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers

Goal 8: Develop a global partnership for development

Target 8A: Develop further an open, rule based, predictable, non-discriminatory trading and financial system

Target 8B: Address the Special Needs of the Least Developed Countries (LDC)

Target 8C: Address the special needs of landlocked developing countries and small island developing states

Target 8D: Deal comprehensively with the debt problems of developing countries through national and international measures in order to make debt sustainable in the long term

Target 8E: In co-operation with pharmaceutical companies, provide access to affordable essential drugs in developing countries

Target 8F: In co-operation with the private sector, make available the benefits of new technologies, especially information and communications.