The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were developed out of the eight chapters of the United Nations Millennium Declaration, signed in September 2000. The eight goals and 21 targets include:
- Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
i) Halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people whose income is less than one dollar a day;
ii) Achieve full and productive employment and decent work for all, including women and young people;
iii) Halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people who suffer from hunger;
- Achieve universal primary education
iv) Ensure that, by 2015, children everywhere, boys and girls alike, will be able to complete a full course of primary schooling;
- Promote gender equality and empower women
v) Eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education preferably by 2005, and at all levels by 2015;
- Reduce child mortality
vi) Reduce by two-thirds, between 1990 and 2015, the under-five mortality rate;
- Improve maternal health
- Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases
ix) Have halted by 2015 and begun to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS;
x) Achieve, by 2010, universal access to treatment for HIV/AIDS for all those who need it;
xi) Have halted by 2015 and begun to reverse the incidence of malaria and other major diseases;
- Ensure environmental sustainability
xii) Integrate the principles of sustainable development into country policies and programmes; reverse loss of environmental resources;
xiii) Reduce biodiversity loss, achieving, by 2010, a significant reduction in the rate of loss;
xiv) Halve, by 2015, the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation;
xv) By 2020, to have achieved a significant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum-dwellers;
- Develop a global partnership for development
xvi) 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;
xvii) Address the special needs of the least developed countries. This includes tariff and quota free access for their exports; enhanced programme of debt relief for heavily indebted poor countries; and cancellation of official bilateral debt; and more generous official development assistance for countries committed to poverty reduction;
xviii) Address the special needs of landlocked and small island developing States;
xix) Deal comprehensively with the debt problems of developing countries through national and international measures in order to make debt sustainable in the long term;
In cooperation with the private sector, make available the benefits of new technologies, especially information and communications.