Flashcard: Millennium Development Goals

Wed, 25 Jun 2014 19:02:24 PDT

The Millennium Development Goals are a set of targets in improvements to global living standards that the United Nations member states have pledged to achieve by 2015. The good news: A lot of progress has been made. The bad news: Time’s pretty much up, and there's still a long way to go. Moreoever, some are skeptical about how much the MDGs had to do with any of that progress.

So what are the Millennium Development Goals?

There are eight MDGs:

Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger Achieve universal primary education Promote gender equality and empower women Reduce child mortality Improve maternal health Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases Ensure environmental sustainability Global partnership for development

What progress has been made?

Much more than you might think. For instance, since the MDGs were launched in 2000, infant mortality in developing countries has dropped by more than one-third—that means some 3 million fewer little kids dying each year. There’s been comparable progress in poverty, education, and several other areas. Of course, there’s still no shortage of misery. According to the World Bank, more than 1 billion people still live in extreme poverty.

What happens to the MDGs after 2015?

The United Nations member states are trying to agree on a framework for a new set of goals that will build on the MDGs’ achievements. In 2012, the U.N. launched an online poll to help pinpoint the issues that matter to people the most. A high-level summit will be held in September 2015 to finalize the post-MDG agenda.

The debate on Millennium Development Goals

It’s hard to say exactly how much of the progress of the last 20 years is due to foreign aid and how much would’ve happened regardless. China’s remarkable economic surge, for example, has pulled hundreds of millions up from destitution; that country alone is responsible for most of the huge drop in global poverty numbers over the past 20 years. In addition, many developing nations lack the means to gather data that’s sufficiently reliable to monitor MDG benchmarks. And that data is subject to time lag. In some countries, the most recent available data might be from 2012; in others, 2010.

Original article from TakePart