Overview

• The UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) build on a set of goals first developed by countries in the OECD strategy "Shaping the 21st Century" adopted in 1996. These were later the basis for a document - A Better World for All building on the global United Nations conferences and summits of the 1990s which was presented in June 2000 by the OECD, the World Bank, the IMF and the UN. In September 2000 at The Millennium Summit titled "The United Nations in the 21st Century." 189 member countries, including 147 Heads of State unanimously adopted the Millennium Declaration. Based on this declaration the UNDP, in co-operation with the World Bank and the OECD, developed a set of goals and indicators United Nations Millennium Development Goals.
• “Leaders from all over the world will come to New York for the Millennium Summit. They will consider the challenges ahead, and what the United Nations can do to face them. Those leaders will be representing you, the peoples of the United Nations. It is up to you to make sure they come here firmly resolved to take decisions which can lead to a better life for all of us, and for our children."
• UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan
• Report of the Secretary-General "We the peoples: the role of the United Nations in the 21st century" (A/54/2000)
• Report of the Secretary-General: Thematic framework for the Millennium Summit Report of the Secretary-General (A/53/948 and Add.1)
• Millennium Summit - International Legal Instruments
• Civil Society Participation - Millennium Forum held by non-governmental organizations on 22-26 May 2000 at UN Headquarters.

The UN has issued a new report on progress to-date [PDF]. The report found that there has been significant progress toward the target of halving extreme poverty by 2015, noting that the proportion of people worldwide living on the equivalent of a dollar a day has dropped from 32 per cent (1.25 billion in 1990) to 19 per cent (980 million in 2004).

The report says, a number of African countries are demonstrating that rapid, wide-scale progress towards the MDGs is possible when strong government leadership, sound policies and practical strategies for promoting public investments are combined with adequate financial and technical support from the international community.

However, the Secretary-General says in the report’s foreword, “the lack of any significant increase in Official Development Assistance since 2004 makes it impossible, even for well-governed countries, to meet the MDGs.” The leading industrial nations pledged to double aid to Africa by 2010 at their meeting in Gleneagles in 2005, but total official aid declined in real terms by 5.1 per cent between 2005 and 2006. Only five donor countries have reached or exceeded the United Nations target of allocating 0.7 per cent of their Gross National Income for aid. (See also the July 2007 press release [PDF].)