In 2000 all 191 member countries of the United Nations – including Australia – committed to eight targets to halve poverty by 2015. This unprecedented global plan is a crucial step towards making poverty history. However with just 5 years to go until 2015 progress is too slow. Urgent action must be taken by nations if they are to fulfil their promise to achieve the MDGs.
The Australian Government should:
- Commit to its fair share of aid funding – 0.7% of national income
- More fully adopt the MDGs as a framework for Australia’s aid program
- Provide an annual progress report to Parliament on Australia’s efforts to achieve the MDGs
- Provide financial assistance to developing countries to help them adapt to climate change that will otherwise threaten achievement of the MDGs
For more information see the MPH policy asks for 2010
What are the Millennium Development Goals?
Since agreeing to make the Millennium Development Goals a key framework for international action and cooperation to reduce poverty, much progress has been made. However, despite the gains, no region in the world is on-track to achieve all of the Goals, and some regions are off-track on many of them. There has been some progress in Sub-Saharan Africa, but the region as a whole will not achieve any of the Millennium Development Goals by 2015 on current progress. Our own region (Asia and the Pacific), where most of Australia’s aid is focused also faces serious challenges on several of the Goals. New resources and new commitment are required if the world is to achieve the Goals it set in 2000, and deliver on the promise made to the world’s poor in the Millennium Declaration:
We will spare no effort to free our fellow men, women and children from the abject and dehumanising conditions of extreme poverty, to which more than a billion of them are currently subjected.
Check out the details of each MDG:
- 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: A global partnership for development
Is the world on track to meet the MDGs by 2015?
The world is making progress toward achieving the MDGs but it is uneven and too slow. Urgent action is needed to get the global plan back on track. While the plan has galvanized an unprecedented global effort to meet the needs of the world’s poorest, the majority of developing countries will only reach the MDGs only if they get substantial support from outside.
