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The Millennium Development Goals are eight goals that all 191 United Nations member states have agreed to try to achieve by the year 2015.
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Goals
The United Nations Millennium Declaration, signed in September 2000, commits the states to:
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1. Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
Reduce by half the proportion of people living on less than one U.S. dollar a day.
Reduce by half the proportion of people who suffer from hunger.
Increase the amount of food for those who suffer from hunger.
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2. Achieve universal primary education
Increased enrollment must be accompanied by efforts to ensure that all children remain in school and receive a high-quality education
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3. Promote gender equality and empower women
Eliminate genders disparity in primary and secondary education preferably by 2005, and at all levels by 2015.
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4. Reduce child mortality
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5. Improve maternal health
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6. Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases
Halt and begin to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS.
Halt and begin to reverse the incidence of malaria and other major diseases.
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7. Ensure environmental sustainability
Integrate the principles of sustainable development into country policies and programmes; reverse loss of environmental resources.
Reduce by half the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water.
Achieve significant improvement in lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers, by 2020.
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8. Develop a global partnership for development
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.
Address the least developed countries’ special needs. This includes tariff- and quota-free access for their exports; enhanced debt relief for heavily indebted poor countries; cancellation of official bilateral debt; and more generous official development assistance for countries committed to poverty reduction.
Address the special needs of landlocked and small island developing States.
Deal comprehensively with developing countries' debt problems through national and international measures to make debt sustainable in the long term.
In cooperation with the developing countries, develop decent and productive work for youth.
In cooperation with pharmaceutical companies, provide access to affordable essential drugs in developing countries.
In cooperation with the private sector, make available the benefits of new technologies—especially information and communications technologies.
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Achieving the Millennium Development Goals
The Borgen Project estimates that $40-$60 billion a year is needed to achieve all eight Millennium Goals by 2015.
The United Nations Millennium Campaign supports citizens' efforts to hold governments accountable for the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals. Visit Millennium Campaign Fund.org
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United States leadership
As the largest national economy in the world, the United States' leadership and commitment is seen as vital in addressing world poverty and in implementing the Millennium Development Goals.
While the United States gives large amounts of aid abroad, its impact upon the Goals during George W. Bush's presidency has been mixed. Some have criticised the fact that many OECD nations, including key members such as the United States, have not delivered their promise of giving 0.7% of their GDP towards poverty reduction by the target year of 2015. Some nations' contributions have fallen far short of 0.7%,* while the US is specifically criticised for active endeavours to undermine the Millennium Development Goals.
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John Boltons stance
John R. Bolton began his term as the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations by providing a list of suggested amendments to the proposed agreement for the 2005 World Summit held in New York City in September 2005. These included stopping the UN use of the term "Millennium Development Goals". Although he succeeded with some of his amendments, he backtracked on his opposition to the use of the term "Millennium Development Goals", as this term is accepted by all other member states of the United Nations.
Source: The Borgen Project
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See also
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