Millennium Development Declaration and Goals

In September 2000, building upon a decade of major United Nations conferences, world leaders came together at United Nations Headquarters in New York to adopt the United Nations Millennium Declaration committing their nations to a new global partnership to reduce extreme poverty and setting out a series of time-bound targets that have become known as the Millennium Development Goals. The eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) form a blueprint agreed to by all the world’s countries and all the world’s leading development institutions. Such goals are to be achieved by the year 2015 and include: eradicating extreme poverty, reducing child mortality rates, fighting disease epidemics such as AIDS, providing universal primary education and developing a global partnership for development.
A World Summit to appraise the status of MDGs was held in 2005 at UN Headquarters, and offered the opportunity to address issues in the areas of development, security, human rights and reform of the United Nations. In September 2008 governments, foundations, businesses and civil society groups, gathered in New York, and rallied around the call to action to slash poverty, hunger and disease by 2015, by announcing new commitments to meet the Millennium Development Goals. The 2010 MDGs Summit concluded with the adoption of a global action plan ‘Keeping the Promise: United to Achieve the Millennium Development Goals’.