In 2000, the United Nations hosted world leaders at its New York headquarters for the Millennium Summit. There, all the world’s countries and leading development institutions agreed on a set of goals with specific targets to be reached by 2015. These eight goals, known as the Millennium Development Goals, form a roadmap for global action.
FAO is most involved with the first Millennium Development Goal: Eradicating hunger and extreme poverty. But all the goals are related. Progress in one area can lead to progress in others. That’s why FAO is committed to working with partners to help countries reach all of the goals.
Goals:
Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
Target 1: Reduce by half the proportion of people living on less than a dollar a day
Target 2: Reduce by half the proportion of people who suffer from hunger
Achieve universal primary education
Target 3: Ensure that all boys and girls complete a full course of primary schooling
Promote gender equality and empower women
Target 4: Eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education preferably by 2005, and at all levels by 2015
Reduce child mortality
Target 5: Reduce by two thirds the mortality rate among children under five
Improve maternal health
Target 6: Reduce by three quarters the maternal mortality ratio
Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases
Target 7: Halt and begin to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS
Target 8: Halt and begin to reverse the incidence of malaria and other major diseases
Ensure environmental sustainability
Target 9: Integrate the principles of sustainable development into country policies and programmes; reverse loss of environmental resources
Target 10: Reduce by half the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water
Target 11: Achieve significant improvement in lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers, by 2020
Develop a global partnership for development
Target 12: Develop further an open trading and financial system that is rule-based, predictable and non-discriminatory. Includes a commitment to good governance, development and poverty reduction – nationally and internationally
Target 13: Address the least developed countries’ special needs. This includes tariff- and quota-free access for their exports; enhanced debt relief for heavily indebted poor countries; cancellation of official bilateral debt; and more generous official development assistance for countries committed to poverty reduction
Target 14: Address the special needs of landlocked and small island developing States
Target 15: Deal comprehensively with developing countries’ debt problems through national and international measures to make debt sustainable in the long term
Target 16: In cooperation with the developing countries, develop decent and productive work for youth
Target 17: In cooperation with pharmaceutical companies, provide access to affordable essential drugs in developing countries
Target 18: In cooperation with the private sector, make available the benefits of new technologies –especially information and communications technologies. (Source: FAO)