Mixed Progress in Reaching Millennium Development Goals

millenium development goals According to the World Bank, less than one-fifth of all countries are currently on target to reduce child and maternal mortality and provide access to water and sanitation, while even fewer are on course to contain HIV, malaria, and other major diseases slated for reduction under the United Nations' Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

References (for download, see below):

"Greater Effort Needed to Achieve the MDGs," in Vital Signs 2005, pp. 108-109

While some countries and regions have made significant gains in poverty reduction and the world as a whole is generally believed to be on track for meeting the MDG targets set for poverty reduction and clean drinking water, the situation is less hopeful for the other goals and targets, including those on hunger, primary education, child mortality, and access to sanitation.

The World Health Organization estimates that to sustain a public health system, a minimum of -40 per person is necessary, but in the world's poorest countries, where GPD per capita is typically in the low hundreds, even this rather modest level of spending will be impossible without outside investment. In 2003, donor countries gave billion in official development assistance, or just 0.25 percent of their gross national incomes, far short of the 0.7 percent of national income goal that was initially adopted at the 1970 U.N. General Assembly and broadly reaffirmed in 2002 at major international conferences. Only five countries have met the 0.7 percent target so far: Denmark, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden.