Nearing A Deadline, Is The World Going To Meet The Millennium Development Goals?
Tuesday, July 15, 2014
In the year 2000, the world agreed to an ambitious eight-point agenda called the Millennium Development Goals and set a deadline for meeting them. Now a year before we hit that deadline in 2015, the UN’s latest appraisal shows a lot of progress, but also highlights the long road still ahead.
On the positive side, economic growth has lifted a lot of boats. The world has met the first MDG of halving the proportion of people who live on less than $1 a day. There are 700 million fewer people in extreme poverty than there were in 1990. From 2011 to 2013, there were 173 million fewer extremely hungry people than from 1990 to 1992.
Similarly, the world has met MDG number six, which sought to stem the spread of diseases like malaria and HIV. Interventions for malaria averted 3.3 million deaths between 2000 and 2012, the report says. Efforts to fight tuberculosis saved 22 million lives from 1995 onwards. The world has also met its targets for access to “improved” water, for less disparity between the number of girls and boys going to primary school, for the percentage of women participating in politics, and for a trading system more favorable to developing nations.
Source: Fast CoExist (link opens in a new window)
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