What are the MDGs?

The eight Millennium Development Goals (MDG’s) break down into 18 quantifiable targets that are measured by 48 indicators.

Goal 1: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
Goal 2: Achieve universal primary education
Goal 3: Promote gender equality and empower women
Goal 4: Reduce child mortality
Goal 5: Improve maternal health
Goal 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases
Goal 7: Ensure environmental sustainability
Goal 8: Develop a Global Partnership for Development

MDG Targets and Indicators:

• synthesise, in a single package, many of the most important commitments made separately at the international conferences and summits of the 1990s;
• recognise explicitly the interdependence between growth, poverty reduction and sustainable development;
• acknowledge that development rests on the foundations of democratic governance, the rule of law, respect for human rights and peace and security;
• are based on time-bound and measurable targets accompanied by indicators for monitoring progress; and
• bring together, in the eighth Goal, the responsibilities of developing countries with those of developed countries, founded on a global partnership endorsed at the International Conference on Financing for Development in Monterrey, Mexico in 2002, and again at the Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development in August 2003.
• The "MDG Dashboard" presents the MDG indicators in a highly communicative format (including maps) aimed at decision-makers and citizens interested in the Millennium Development Goals and Sustainable Development. This free database provides 60 indicators for ca. 200 countries and 15 years (1990-2004) based on original UN Statistics Division data.