What are the Millennium Development Goals?

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are eight goals to be achieved by 2015 that respond to the world's main development challenges. The MDGs are drawn from the actions and targets contained in the Millennium Declaration that was adopted by 189 nations-and signed by 147 heads of state and governments during the UN Millennium Summit in September 2000.

The 8 MDGs break down into 18 quantifiable targets that are measured by 48 indicators.

Goal 1: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
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

The MDGs:

1. Synthesise, in a single package, many of the most important commitments made separately at the international conferences and summits of the 1990s;
2. Recognise explicitly the interdependence between growth, poverty reduction and sustainable development;
3. Acknowledge that development rests on the foundations of democratic governance, the rule of law, respect for human rights and peace and security;
4. Are based on time-bound and measurable targets accompanied by indicators for monitoring progress; and
5. Bring together, in the eighth Goal, the responsibilities of developing countries with those of developed countries, founded on a global partnership endorsed at the International Conference on Financing for Development in Monterrey, Mexico in 2002, and again at the Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development in August 2003.