The Millennium Development
Goals (MDGs)
Last updated: July 2003
DFID's development policies and targets stem from White
Papers issued in 1997 and 2000. More information about the
White Papers can be found here.
Both the 1997 and 2000 White Papers reflected the
commitment of the UK Government to achieving the International Development Targets.
Those Targets were expanded and enshrined as the Millennium
Development Goals in a
resolution adopted by the UN General Assembly at its
Millennium Summit from 6-8 September 2000 in New York. For
full information about the Millennium Summit, go here.
Note: References throughout this website to
the International Development Targets (or IDTs) should now
be taken as relating to the Millennium Development Goals (or
MDGs).
Millennium Development Goals
Goal
1. Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
- Target 1. Halve, by 2015, the proportion of people
whose income is less than one dollar a day.
- Target 2. Halve, by 2015, the proportion of people who
suffer from hunger.
Goal 2. Achieve universal primary
education
- Target 3. Ensure that, by 2015, children everywhere,
boys and girls alike, will be able to complete a full
course of primary schooling.
Goal 3. Promote gender equality
and empower women
- Target 4. Eliminate gender disparity in primary and
secondary education, preferably by 2005, and to all
levels of education no later than 2015.
Goal 4. Reduce child mortality
- Target 5. Reduce by two-thirds, by 2015, the
under-five mortality rate.
Goal 5. Improve maternal health
- Target 6. Reduce by three-quarters, by 2015, the
maternal mortality ratio.
Goal 6. Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria
and other diseases
- Target 7. Have halted by 2015 and begun to reverse the
spread of HIV/AIDS.
- Target 8. Have halted by 2015 and begun to reverse the
incidence of malaria and other major diseases.
Goal 7. Ensure environmental
sustainability
- Target 9. Integrate the principles of sustainable
development into country policies and programmes and
reverse the loss of environmental resources.
- Target 10. Halve by 2015 the proportion of people
without sustainable access to safe drinking water.
- Target 11. 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 12. Develop further an open, rule-based,
predictable, non-discriminatory trading and financial
system. (Includes a commitment to good governance,
development, and poverty reduction – both nationally
and internationally.)
- Target 13. Address the special needs of the least
developed countries. (Includes: tariff and quota free
access for least developed countries’ exports;
enhanced programme of debt relief for HIPCs and
cancellation of official bilateral debt; and more
generous ODA for countries committed to poverty
reduction.)
- Target 14. Address the special needs of landlocked
countries and small island developing States (through
the Programme of Action for the Sustainable Development
of Small Island Developing States and the outcome of the
22nd special session of the General Assembly).
- Target 15. 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 16. In co-operation with developing countries,
develop and implement strategies for decent and
productive work for youth.
- Target 17. In co-operation with pharmaceutical
companies, provide access to affordable essential drugs
in developing countries.
- Target 18. In co-operation with the private sector,
make available the benefits of new technologies,
especially information and communications.
More information about the Millennium Development Goals
can be found here.
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