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Frequently asked questions

1. What's so special about 2005? Answer

2. What are the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)?

They're 8 international targets on reducing global poverty. They were set at a meeting in 1999 when it was realised that the existing poverty reduction targets to be achieved by 2000 would not be met. Thus governments set new goals to be achieved by 2015. Achieving these goals would lift at least 500 million people out of poverty.

The goals are:

a) Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger:
reduce by half the number of people living on less than $1 (60p) a day and those who suffer from hunger.

b) Achieve universal primary education.

c) Promote gender equality and empower women:
end gender disparity at all levels by 2015.

d) Reduce child mortality by two thirds for children under five.

e) Improve maternal health:
reducing by three quarters the maternal mortality ratio.

f) Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases:
halt and begin to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases.

g) Ensure environmental sustainability, including:
- integrating environmental sustainability into developing country policies and programmes;
- reversing the loss of environmental resources;
- reducing by half the people without access to clean drinking water;
- achieve significant improvement in the lives of 100 million slum dwellers (by 2020).

h) Develop a global partnership for development, including:
- an open trading and financial system that is rule based and includes a commitment to good governance, development and poverty reduction;
- addressing least developed countries’ special needs including tariff and quota-free access for exports;
- enhanced debt relief and cancellation of bilateral debt;
- national and international measures to make debt sustainable;
- more generous development assistance for countries committed to poverty reduction;
- working with pharmaceutical companies to provide access to affordable essential drugs in developing countries;
- make available the benefits of new technologies in cooperation with the private sector.