"Keeping a Promise" - United Nations Official Report on MDGs (Feb 2010)

 United Nations  A/64/665 

  

General Assembly 

Sixty-fourth session 

Agenda items 48 and 114 

Integrated and coordinated implementation of and follow-up  to the outcomes of the major
United Nations conferences and  

summits in the economic, social and related fields 

Follow-up to the outcome of the Millennium Summit 

  Keeping the promise: a forward-looking review to promote 

an agreed action agenda to achieve the Millennium 

Development Goals by 2015 

  Report of the Secretary-General* 

 Summary 

 This report, which is issued pursuant to General Assembly resolution 64/184, 

presents information on progress made in achieving the Millennium Development 

Goals through a comprehensive review of successes, best practices and lessons 

learned, obstacles and gaps, and challenges and opportunities, leading to concrete 

strategies for action. It consists of four main sections. The introduction examines the 

importance of the Millennium Declaration and how it drives the United Nations 

development agenda. The second section reviews progress on achieving the 

Millennium Development Goals, presenting both shortfalls and successes in the 

global effort and outlines emerging issues. The third section sums up lessons learned 

to shape new efforts for accelerating progress to meet the Goals and identifies key 

success factors. The fourth and final section lists specific recommendations for 

action. The report calls for a new pact to accelerate progress in achieving the Goals 

in the coming years among all stakeholders, in a commitment towards equitable and 

sustainable development for all. 

 * In preparing this report, reference is made to many other reports, including: “Consensus for maternal, 

newborn and child health” (Partnership for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health, 2009); The Millennium 

Development Goals 2009 (United Nations, 2009); Achieving the Millennium Development Goals in 

Africa: Recommendations of the MDG Africa Steering Group (June 2008); Investing in Development: 

A Practical Plan to Achieve the Millennium Development Goals (United Nations Millennium Project, 

2005); Rethinking Poverty: Report on the World Social Situation 2010 (United Nations, 2010); and 

others. Invaluable inputs were received from the different funds, programmes, agencies and departments 

of the United Nations that have been working closely with Governments, civil society and the private 

sector over the past decade to advance progress towards the Millennium Development Goals. 

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 I. Introduction 

1. The adoption of the Millennium Declaration1 in 2000 by 189 States Members 

of the United Nations, 147 of which were represented by their Head of State, was a 

defining moment for global cooperation in the twenty-first century. The Declaration 

captured previously agreed goals on international development, and gave birth to a 

set of concrete and measurable development objectives known as the Millennium 

Development Goals. Spurred by the Declaration, leaders from both developed and 

developing countries committed to achieve these interwoven goals by 2015. 

2. The Millennium Development Goals are the highest profile articulation of the 

internationally agreed development goals associated with the United Nations 

development agenda, representing the culmination of numerous important United 

Nations summits held during the previous decade, including summits on sustainable 

development, education, children, food, women, population and social development. 

They are the world’s quantified, time-bound targets for addressing extreme poverty, 

hunger and disease, and for promoting gender equality, education and environmental 

sustainability. They are also an expression of basic human rights: the rights of 

everyone to good health, education and shelter. The eighth Goal, to build a global 

partnership for development, includes commitments in the areas of development 

assistance, debt relief, trade and access to technologies.  

3. During the past decade, the Millennium Declaration and the Millennium 

Development Goals have led to unprecedented commitments and partnerships 

reaffirmed in successive summits and meetings, including the 2002 International 

Conference on Financing for Development at Monterrey, Mexico, the 2002 World 

Summit on Sustainable Development, in Johannesburg, South Africa, and the 2005 

World Summit in New York. During this same period, the public and their 

Governments have also had to contend with new unanticipated challenges. Some 

have been specific to countries or regions, while others have been global, such as 

the food and economic crises of the last three years. 

4. Our challenge today is to agree on an action agenda to achieve the Millennium 

Development Goals. With five years to go to the target date of 2015, the prospect of 

falling short of achieving the Goals because of a lack of commitment is very real. 

This would be an unacceptable failure from both the moral and the practical 

standpoint. If we fail, the dangers in the world — instability, violence, epidemic 

diseases, environmental degradation, runaway population growth — will all be 

multiplied.  

5. Achievement of the Millennium Development Goals remains feasible with 

adequate commitment, policies, resources and effort. The Millennium Declaration 

represents the most important collective promise ever made to the world’s most 

vulnerable people. This promise is not based on pity or charity, but on solidarity, 

justice and the recognition that we are increasingly dependent on one another for 

our shared prosperity and security.  

6. The Millennium Development Goals provide a historic framework for focus 

and accountability. This fabric of accountability, however, is being tested and will 

need to be further strengthened to achieve the Goals by 2015. This is all the more 

important as the Goals are crucial stepping stones towards equitable and sustainable 

__________________ 

 1  General Assembly resolution 55/2. 

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development for all. Meanwhile, the devastating impact of climate change looms 

large, and the international community is facing the challenge of working together 

to ensure the end of extreme poverty and sustainable development to save the planet 

and its people, especially the most vulnerable. 

7. This report calls on all stakeholders, including national Governments, donor 

and other supportive Governments, the business community and civil society at 

large, to work in concert to ensure that the Millennium Development Goals are met 

by 2015. The high-level plenary meeting of the General Assembly to review the 

implementation of the Goals in September 2010 will provide a unique opportunity to 

strengthen collective efforts and partnerships for the push to 2015. The present 

report assesses achievements and shortfalls thus far, and suggests an action agenda 

for the period from 2011 to 2015.  

 II. Progress so far 

8. A number of countries have achieved major successes in combating extreme 

poverty and hunger, improving school enrolment and child health, expanding access 

to clean water and access to HIV treatment and controlling malaria, tuberculosis and 

neglected tropical diseases. This has happened in some of the poorest countries, 

demonstrating that the Millennium Development Goals are indeed achievable with 

the right policies, adequate levels of investment, and international support. 

Considering their historical experience, some poor countries and even whole regions 

have made remarkable progress. For example, sub-Saharan Africa has made huge 

improvements in child health and in primary school enrolment over the past two 

decades. Between 1999 and 2004, sub-Saharan Africa achieved one of the largest 

ever reductions in deaths from measles worldwide.2  

9. Nevertheless, progress has been uneven and, without additional efforts, several 

of the Millennium Development Goals are likely to be missed in many countries. 

The challenges are most severe in the least developed countries, landlocked 

developing countries, some small island developing States and countries that are 

vulnerable to natural hazards and recurring lapses into armed violence. Countries in 

or emerging from conflict are more likely to be poor and face greater constraints, 

because basic infrastructure, institutions and adequate human resources are often 

absent and lack of security hampers economic development.  

10. Later this year, the Millennium Development Goals Report 2010 and MDG 

Gap Task Force report will assess progress on achieving the Goals. The latest update 

of the 60 official Millennium Development Goal indicators will be presented in an 

addendum to the present report, to be issued later this spring. The following section 

__________________ 

 2  It should be noted that accurately measuring progress towards the Millennium Development 

Goals is sometimes difficult when precise data are not available or come with a long time lag. 

Furthermore, progress at the global level obscures uneven progress at the regional, country and 

local levels. Thus, caution is needed in interpreting aggregate data and making judgements about 

overall progress. Evaluating the goals, targets and indicators by country may understate progress 

by the poorest countries, for example, halving poverty from 60 to 30 per cent of the population 

is much more difficult than from 6 to 3 per cent, especially as a 20 per cent increase in per 

capita income from $1,000 per annum is worth only a tenth of a similarly proportioned increase 

from $10,000. 

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of the report assesses successes, obstacles and gaps in order to draw lessons on 

actions needed to achieve the Goals.  

 A. A mixed picture of shortfalls and successes3 

  Progress on poverty reduction has been uneven and is now threatened  

11. According to the World Bank’s much cited “dollar-a-day” international 

poverty line, revised in 2008 to $1.25 a day in 2005 prices, there were still 

1.4 billion people living in extreme poverty in 2005, down from 1.8 billion in 

1990.4 However, as China has accounted for most of this decrease, without China, 

progress does not look very encouraging; in fact, the number of people living in 

extreme poverty actually went up between 1990 and 2005 by about 36 million. In 

sub-Saharan Africa and parts of Asia, poverty and hunger remain stubbornly high. 

The number of “$1 a day poor” went up by 92 million in sub-Saharan Africa and by 

8 million in West Asia during the period 1990 to 2005.5 The poverty situation is 

more serious when other dimensions of poverty, acknowledged at the 1995 World 

Summit for Social Development, such as deprivation, social exclusion and lack of 

participation, are also considered.6  

  Hunger is increasing and remains an important global challenge 

12. Despite earlier progress, the number of hungry has been rising since 1995 and 

the proportion of hungry people in the global population has been rising since 2004- 

2006. There are still over a billion hungry people, and more than 2 billion people are 

deficient in micronutrients; 129 million children were underweight and 195 million 

under age 5 were stunted. The number of hungry people worldwide rose from 

842 million in 1990-1992 to 873 million in 2004-2006 and to 1.02 billion people 

during 2009, the highest level ever. This was largely a result of reduced access to 

food because of high food prices and the global financial and economic crisis, which 

has lead to lower incomes and higher unemployment. Rising global hunger has 

undermined confidence in the declining global poverty estimates, as extreme 

poverty is supposed to be measured in terms of the income or expenditure 

considered necessary to avoid hunger.7 Of the 117 countries for which data are 

available, 63 are now on track to meet the Millennium Development Goal 

__________________ 

 3  This section draws on the Millennium Development Goals Report 2009 (United Nations 

publication, Sales No. E.09.I.12) unless otherwise indicated. 

 4  This new estimate is about 50 per cent higher than the earlier World Bank estimate of poverty in 

2005, based on its earlier $1.08/day poverty line, up from the original $1/day line in 1993 

prices. Using 1993 as the baseline, and adjusting for consumer price inflation in the United 

States of America, would suggest a poverty line in 2005 of $1.45, rather than the $1.25 used by 

the Bank. 

 5  The food and fuel crises in 2007-2008 and the global financial and economic crisis have made 

the situation worse. The World Bank estimates that 100 million people in low-income countries 

were pushed deeper into poverty as a result of a doubling of food prices. According to the World 

Bank’s Global Economic Prospects 2010, globally, and notwithstanding upward revisions to 

growth projections for 2010, the number of people living on $1.25 per day or less is still 

expected to increase by some 64 million as compared with a no-crisis scenario. 

 6  See Rethinking Poverty: Report on the World Social Situation 2010 (United Nations publication, 

Sales No. E.09.IV.10). 

 7  Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, The State of Food Insecurity in the 

World: Economic Crisis: Impacts and Lessons Learned (Rome, 2009). 

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underweight target, compared with 46 countries in 2006. Most of the 20 countries 

that have made no visible progress are in sub-Saharan Africa.8  

  Target for full and decent employment for all remains unfulfilled  

13. Even though there is no deadline for meeting the target of achieving full and 

productive employment and decent work for all, no country can claim to have 

reached this target. Economic growth in many countries over the past decades did 

not produce rapid job growth, prompting the term “jobless growth”. The lack of 

progress in creating productive and decent jobs in urban areas, together with 

stagnant farm productivity in many rural areas, have been the key reasons for the 

persistence of poverty and the rise in the number of working poor. It is estimated 

that in 2008, some 633 million workers (21.2 per cent of the workers in the world) 

lived with their families on less than $1.25 per person per day. As a result of the 

economic and financial crisis, it is estimated that in 2009 this number increased by 

up to 215 million, including 100 million in South Asia and 28 million in 

sub-Saharan Africa.9 This suggests that up to an additional 7 per cent of workers 

were at risk of falling into poverty between 2008 and 2009. 

14. Over 300 million new jobs will need to be created over the next five years to 

return to pre-crisis levels of unemployment.10 The unemployed need more than just 

jobs; they need decent work that will give them adequate income and rights. The 

unemployment rate for young people (aged between 15 and 24 years) has risen 

faster than the overall unemployment rate worldwide. It reached as much as 14 per 

cent in 2009, an increase of 1.9 percentage points since 2008.9  

  Progress on universal access to education, but the goal remains unmet  

15. There has been remarkable progress towards achieving universal primary 

education in developing countries since 2000, with many countries having crossed 

the 90 per cent enrolment threshold.11 Enrolment in primary education has 

increased fastest in sub-Saharan Africa, from 58 per cent in 2000 to 74 per cent in 

2007. However, the rapid rise in enrolment may cause pressure on the capacity of 

schools and teachers to deliver quality education. 

16. Around 126 million children are still involved in hazardous work, and more 

than 72 million children of primary school age around the world, about half of them 

in sub-Saharan Africa, remain out of school. Furthermore, dropout rates remain high 

in many countries, implying that achieving 100 per cent primary school completion 

rates remains a challenge.  

17. Inequalities continue to pose major barriers to attaining universal primary 

education. Children from the poorest 20 per cent of households account for over  

40 per cent of all out-of-school children in many developing countries. In most 

developing countries, children from the wealthiest 20 per cent of households have 

__________________ 

 8  United Nations Development Group, MDG Gap Task Force, “MDG 1: Eradicate extreme 

poverty and hunger: review of progress, 2000-2010”, available at http://www.undg.org/docs/ 

10816/MDG-1.doc. 

 9  International Labour Organization, Global Employment Trends, January 2010. 

 10  Ibid., “Recovering from the crisis: a Global Jobs Pact”, adopted by the International Labour 

Conference at its ninety-eighth session (Geneva, June 2009). 

 11  United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, Education for All Global 

Monitoring Report 2009. 

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already achieved universal primary education, while those from the poorest quintile 

have a long way to go.11 Income-based disparities intersect with wider inequalities: 

children from rural areas, slums and areas affected by or emerging from conflict, 

children with disabilities and other disadvantaged children face major obstacles in 

accessing good quality education. 

  Insufficient progress on gender equality  

18. Redressing gender inequality remains one of the most difficult goals almost 

everywhere, with implications that cut across many other issues. The root causes of 

gender disadvantage and oppression lie in societal attitudes and norms and power 

structures, as identified in the Beijing Platform for Action.  

19. The share of national parliamentary seats held by women has increased only 

slowly, averaging 18 per cent as at January 2009. While this is far from the 30 per 

cent target envisioned in the Beijing Platform for Action, it represents a rise from  

11 per cent 10 years earlier, a significantly greater increase than the 1 per cent 

increase between 1975 and 1995. Still, at the present rate it will take another 

40 years for developing countries to reach between 40 and 60 per cent share of 

parliamentary stats for women.12  

20. The gender gap in primary school enrolment has narrowed in the past decade, 

albeit at a slow pace. In developing countries in 2007, over 95 girls of primary 

school age were in school for every 100 boys, compared with 91 in 1999. Progress 

in secondary schooling has been slower, and in some regions, gaps are widening. In 

sub-Saharan Africa, the percentage of enrolment of girls compared with boys in 

secondary education fell from 82 per cent in 1999 to 79 per cent in 2007. Only 53 of 

the 171 countries with available data had achieved gender parity in both primary 

and secondary education, 14 more than in 1999.13  

21. While participation of women in the labour force has increased, there are still 

significant gender gaps in participation rates, occupational levels and wages. Paid 

employment for women has expanded slowly and women continue to assume the 

largest share of unpaid work. Close to two thirds of all employed women in 

developing countries work as contributing family workers or as workers on their 

own account, typically in forms of employment that are extremely vulnerable and 

lack job security and benefits. Women’s share of waged non-agricultural 

employment has increased in the last decade but only marginally, and women have 

generally failed to get decent jobs. In the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia, 

for example, the share of females in total employment is below 30 per cent.14  

22. Violence against women remains a major blight on humanity everywhere. 

While there have been increased initiatives to address violence against women, such 

efforts are often not comprehensive, consistent, sustained or well-coordinated.12  

__________________ 

 12  United Nations Development Fund for Women, Progress of the World’s Women, 2008/2009. 

 13  United Nations Development Group, MDG Gap Task Force, “MDG-3: Promote gender equality 

and empower women”, available at www.undg.org/docs/10821/MDG-3.doc. 

 14  World Bank, Global Monitoring Report 2009, annex, Monitoring the MDGs: selected indicators. 

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  Significant progress on some health-related Millennium Development Goals 

23. Deaths among children under five years of age have been reduced from 

12.5 million per year (1990) to 8.8 million (2008).15 The number of people in low- 

and middle-income countries receiving antiretroviral therapy for HIV increased 

10-fold in five years (2003-2008),16 and there has been significant progress in 

reducing deaths from measles and providing interventions to control tuberculosis 

and malaria. More than 500 million people are now treated annually for one or more 

neglected tropical diseases.  

24. Nonetheless, based on current trends, many countries are unlikely to achieve 

the Millennium Development Goal health targets by 2015. The child mortality rate 

in developing countries fell from 99 deaths per 1,000 live births in 1990 to 72 in 

2008.15 This is well short of the target of a two-thirds reduction (to 33 deaths per 

1,000 live births). Furthermore, the rate of improvement has been uneven both 

among and within countries. Most noteworthy is the lack of progress in reducing 

deaths during the first month after birth (the neonatal period). Globally, 36 per cent 

of deaths among children under 5 years of age happen in this period. 

25. The number of new HIV infections was 2.7 million in 2008, a decline of 30 per 

cent from the peak of 3.5 million in 1996. Meanwhile, the proportion of people 

receiving antiretroviral therapy increased from less than 5 per cent of those in need 

at the beginning of the decade to 42 per cent in 2008, and the number of women 

receiving treatment for prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV trebled, 

from 15 per cent in 2005 to 45 per cent in 2008.16 

26. This progress has not yet been enough, however, to reverse the trajectory of 

the epidemic, because interventions for prevention and treatment often fall short in 

coverage: for every two people starting antiretroviral treatment, there are five new 

HIV infections. Prevention has not received sufficient priority. 

27. Moreover, in 2008 only 21 per cent of pregnant women received HIV testing 

and counselling, while only one third of those identified as HIV-positive during 

antenatal care were subsequently assessed for eligibility to receive antiretroviral 

therapy for their own health.17 The voluntary family planning needs of persons 

living with HIV and their access to services are not routinely monitored. These 

problems are most pressing in sub-Saharan Africa, where the prevalence of HIV is, 

by far, the highest. Elsewhere, HIV epidemics are mostly concentrated within key 

populations that are at greater risk, including injecting drug users, sex workers and 

men who have sex with men.  

28. The global incidence of tuberculosis appears to have peaked in 2004, and is 

now falling slowly in most parts of the world (except in African countries with a 

high prevalence of HIV). However, the burden of tuberculosis remains high. The 

epidemic of multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis is a major concern, with growing 

evidence of extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis. 

__________________ 

 15  See www.childinfo.org. 

 16  Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, AIDS Epidemic Update 2009. 

 17  World Health Organization, Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS and United Nations 

Children’s Fund, Towards Universal Access, progress report (September 2009). 

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29. Approximately 250 million malaria episodes occurred in 2008, leading to 

approximately 850,000 deaths;18 about 90 per cent of these deaths occurred in 

Africa, most among children under 5 years of age. However, major progress in 

increasing key malaria control interventions with a proven impact on the number of 

cases and deaths has been documented in many countries and areas. Approximately 

200 million nets, out of the more than 340 million nets needed to achieve universal 

coverage (defined here as one net for every two people), were delivered to countries 

in Africa during the period 2004 to 2009. Use of insecticide-treated nets by children 

(one of the most vulnerable groups) rose from just 2 per cent in 2000 to 22 per cent 

in 2008 in a subset of 26 African countries with trend data (covering 71 per cent of 

the under-5 population in Africa), with 11 of these countries achieving at least a 

tenfold gain.19 

  Least progress in reducing maternal mortality 

30. Access to reproductive health services remains poor where women’s health 

risks are greatest. Deliveries attended by skilled health workers in developing 

regions have increased since 1990, from 53 per cent in 1990 to 61 per cent in 2007, 

but there has been little progress in reducing maternal deaths; maternal mortality 

declined only marginally, from 480 deaths per 100,000 live births in 1990 to 450 in 

2005. At this rate, the target of 120 deaths per 100,000 live births by 2015 cannot be 

achieved. As part of broader investment in public health programmes, adequate 

financing for maternal health, especially dedicated to ensure safe deliveries, is 

critical.  

31. Adolescent pregnancy rates have declined most in countries where initial 

levels were relatively low, while high adolescent fertility has persisted in many 

countries. The adolescent birth rate is highest in sub-Saharan Africa, where the rate 

of 123 births per 1,000 teenage girls was almost twice that of Latin America and the 

Caribbean, the second ranked region.  

32. Unsafe abortions continued to account for one out of eight maternal deaths in 

2005, despite increased contraceptive use among married women and women in 

unions. Nevertheless, 11 per cent of women in developing countries (including 

24 per cent in sub-Saharan Africa) who want to delay or stop childbearing are not 

using contraception.  

  Limited progress on environmental sustainability  

33. Some progress has been achieved towards the target of halving the proportion 

of people without access to clean water, but the proportion without improved 

__________________ 

 18  World Health Organization, World Malaria Report 2009. 

 19  Prompt and effective treatment is critical for addressing life-threatening complications from 

malaria. Anti-malarial treatment for children with fever is moderately high across Africa, 

although many febrile children are still being treated at home and with less effective medicines. 

Only four African countries currently have trend data for the use of artemisinin-based 

combination therapies among febrile children, which is the first-line treatment for 

uncomplicated malaria in nearly all African countries. Nevertheless, these limited data show 

promising gains in effective treatment coverage. Ghana, for example, increased artemisinin- 

based combination therapies coverage from 4 per cent in 2006 to 22 per cent in 2008, while 

coverage in the United Republic of Tanzania rose from 2 per cent in 2005 to 21 per cent in 2008 

(World Malaria Day 2010, brochure, forthcoming (April 2010)). 

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sanitation decreased by only 8 percentage points between 1990 and 2006.20 The 

goal of improving the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers has proved to be 

much less ambitious than necessary to reverse the trend of increasing numbers of 

slum dwellers.  

34. The Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer has 

resulted in the production and use of over 98 per cent of all controlled ozone- 

depleting substances being successfully phased out. In contrast, the rate of growth 

of carbon dioxide emissions was much higher during the 1995-2004 period than 

during the 1970-1994 period, and that trend has not changed. While net 

deforestation rates have decreased, some 13 million hectares of the world’s forests 

are still lost each year, including six million hectares of primary forest.14 This loss 

has been only partially compensated for by afforestation. As a result, worldwide, 

around 7 million hectares of forest cover is lost every year. 

35. The target to reduce the rate of biodiversity loss by 2010 has not been met. In 

the latest reports submitted to the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on 

Biological Diversity, many Governments admit that the target will be missed at the 

national level. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature has reported 

that nearly 17,000 plant and animal species are known to be threatened with 

extinction. Major threats and drivers of biodiversity loss, such as over-consumption, 

habitat loss, invasive species, pollution and climate change, are not yet being 

effectively tackled.21 

 B. Emerging issues and challenges  

36. This section of the present report highlights some challenges and some 

mitigating factors that have the potential to rollback gains and create obstacles to 

achieving development goals, including the Millennium Development Goals. The 

challenge is to turn the challenges into opportunities, based on a proper analysis of 

the underlying causes and development of appropriate policies to tackle them. 

  Climate change 

37. The most severe impacts of climate change are being experienced by 

vulnerable populations who have contributed the least to the problem. Addressing 

the climate change challenge provides opportunities for broader improvements in 

economies, governance, institutions and intergenerational relations and 

responsibilities; achieving the Millennium Development Goals should also 

contribute to the capacities needed to tackle climate change. 

38. Switching to low greenhouse gas emitting, high-growth pathways to meet the 

development and climate challenges is both necessary and feasible.22 Combating 

global warming cannot be achieved without eventual reductions in emissions by 

both developed and developing countries. Technological options for a shift towards 

__________________ 

 20  World Health Organization and United Nations Children’s Fund Joint Monitoring Programme 

for Water Supply and Sanitation, Progress on Drinking Water and Sanitation: Special Focus on 

Sanitation (New York and Geneva, 2008). 

 21  International Union for the Conservation of Nature, Wildlife in a Changing World, 2009 (report 

based on the analysis of the 44,838 species on the IUCN Red List). 

 22  World Economic and Social Survey 2009 (United Nations publication, Sales No. E.09.II.C.1). 

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such pathways exist. Such a switch would entail unprecedented and costly socio- 

economic adjustments in developing countries. For this to happen, the shift will 

require much greater international support and solidarity. 

39. Achieving such a transformation hinges on a global new deal capable of 

raising investment levels and channelling resources towards massive investment in 

renewable energy, and building resilience with respect to unavoidable climate 

changes. Most developing countries currently do not have the financial resources, 

technological know-how or institutional capacity to deploy such strategies at a 

speed commensurate with the urgency of the climate challenge. Failure to honour 

long-standing commitments of international support in these three areas remains the 

single biggest obstacle to meeting the challenge of climate change.  

40. Climate-resistant development is imperative, and investments to achieve it will 

be the main way to overcome the perception of a trade off between development and 

addressing climate change. Beyond existing official development assistance (ODA) 

commitments, adaptation and mitigation in developing countries would require 

financial assistance of perhaps an additional 1 per cent of the gross domestic 

product (GDP) of rich countries in 2015,23 a small sum compared with the likely 

costs of inaction. Many alternative approaches — such as large-scale solar power or 

restoration of heavily degraded or unused land — will need to be encouraged, 

supported and even subsidized. Economic incentives will be required to accelerate a 

transition to cleaner technologies. 

  The current crises: finance, the economy and food security 

41. Although the measures taken so far in response to the global financial and 

economic crisis have been able to prevent a deeper recession, they do not yet add up 

to a sustainable long-term solution. Little has been done to address speculative 

forces that caused financial markets to undermine the real sector priorities. Official 

international discussion of financial reforms was until recently largely focused on 

executive remuneration, rather than on better regulation of financial markets, let 

alone the impacts of the crisis on currency and commodity markets and on the 

trading system. 

42. The global financial architecture will need to be overhauled. The failings of 

the financial sector certainly require improved regulatory oversight, higher buffer 

capital requirements, and effective and equitable measures to deal with financial 

institutions deemed “too big to fail”. There is also a need to make financial markets 

less volatile and more predictable. At the same time, these initiatives will need to be 

properly designed to ensure that they also help to boost both investment and private 

demand, as well as to make sure that the economic recovery does not collapse as 

soon as public efforts are withdrawn. It is also vital that recovery efforts do not 

resort to open or disguised protectionist measures. Productive integration of 

economies must proceed with an eye to increasing equity and providing social floors 

and other social protection. 

43. Innovative measures should be used to address the food and other crises. There 

are many important cost-effective innovations in the field of nutrition ready to be 

__________________ 

 23  Nicholas Stern, “Deciding our future in Copenhagen: will the world rise to the challenge of 

climate change?”, Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, policy 

brief (December 2009); p. 3; and World Economic and Social Survey 2009. 

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scaled up. They include complementary and supplementary nutritious food items 

(nutrient supplements) to address the specific needs of young children and the ill, 

including those living with HIV, and more diversified production of nutritious local 

foodstuffs. Agriculture’s share of ODA — merely 4 per cent in 2006 and down from 

almost 20 per cent a few decades ago — should increase. There should be 

significant new investment in enhancing capacities of small farmers, more efficient 

water management technologies, restoration of soil nutrients, more stress-resistant 

agricultural varieties and market opportunities for small farmers.  

  Intensifying prevention of violence and responses to humanitarian crises 

44. The risk of disasters is increasing globally and is highly concentrated in 

middle- and low-income countries.24 Reducing that risk and increasing resilience to 

natural hazards in different development sectors can have multiplier effects and 

accelerate achievement of the Millennium Development Goals. The Hyogo 

Framework for Action 2005-2015: Building the Resilience of Nations, and 

Communities to Disasters, endorsed by Member States, commits all countries to 

make major efforts to reduce their risk of disaster by 2015. The horrific loss of life 

in Haiti underscores the need to ensure that the human-built environment is resilient 

in the face of an array of potential hazards, both seismic and climatic. 

45. Armed violence, conflict (inter-State, civil and criminal) and the resulting 

breakdown of the rule of law, justice and security are also a major threat to human 

security and to the hard-won Millennium Development Goal gains. Thus, there is an 

urgent need to focus on the root causes of conflict and armed violence and on 

advancing people-centred solutions. This requires strengthening institutions that 

monitor and mitigate conflicts, crime and violence, as well as identifying and 

addressing the underlying drivers, risk factors and tensions before they turn into 

armed conflicts and humanitarian crises. Reforms to strengthen institutions should 

include promoting transparency and giving voice and representation to previously 

underrepresented communities to make them stakeholders in the peace process.  

46. What happens after conflicts are resolved is also vital. This should include 

promoting the rule of law, justice and security, implementing armed violence 

reduction strategies, early economic recovery support, rebuilding capacities, 

building democratic institutions and re-engaging countries in the global architecture 

without undermining national ownership of strategies. This period must be used 

more effectively to eliminate inequalities and discrimination in law and in practice, 

and to guarantee equal access to resources and opportunities.  

  Addressing the special needs of the most vulnerable  

47. Attention must be focused on the special needs of the most vulnerable and the 

large and increasing inequalities in various economic and social dimensions, 

including geography, sex, age, disability, ethnicity and other vulnerabilities. Some 

urgent issues are highlighted below: 

 (a) Children from poor households, rural areas, slums and other 

disadvantaged groups face major obstacles in access to a good quality education. 

The literacy gap between the children from the wealthiest 20 per cent of households 

__________________ 

 24  United Nations, 2009 Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction: Risk and Poverty 

in a Changing Climate. 

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and those from the poorest 20 per cent is more than 40 percentage points. Children 

with disabilities remain among the most marginalized and least likely to go to 

school;11 

 (b) Very young children are especially vulnerable. Children who are stunted 

at age 2 tend to suffer severe life-long consequences in terms of poorer health and 

reduced cognitive development and economic opportunities; 

 (c) Indigenous people are overrepresented among the poor, with their level 

of access to adequate health and education services well below national averages. 

They are especially vulnerable to environmental degradation. Indigenous peoples 

make up 15 per cent of the world’s poor and a third of the world’s 900 million 

extremely poor rural people;25  

 (d) Around 1.8 million children under the age of 15 in sub-Saharan Africa 

live with HIV, while some 12 million children under the age of 18 have lost one or 

both parents to AIDS. In 56 countries for which recent household survey data are 

available, orphans who had lost both parents were 12 per cent less likely to be in 

school, and often become a head of household, assuming enormous responsibilities 

at an early age. The impact of being orphans may be especially severe for girls, who 

are generally more likely than boys not to be in school.26 Children without the 

guidance and protection of their primary caregivers are more at risk of becoming 

victims of violence, exploitation, trafficking, discrimination and other abuses 

resulting in malnutrition, illness, physical and psychosocial trauma, and impaired 

cognitive and emotional development. Unaccompanied girls are at especially high 

risk of sexual abuse; 

 (e) At the end of 2008, there were some 42 million forcibly displaced people 

worldwide. This included 15.2 million refugees, 827,000 asylum-seekers (pending 

cases) and 26 million internally displaced persons. Women and girls represent  

47 per cent of refugees and asylum-seekers and half of all internally displaced 

persons and returnees. Among refugees and asylum-seekers, 44 per cent are children 

below 18 years of age. More than 5.7 million refugees are trapped in protracted 

situations for which there is limited hope of finding a solution in the near future, 

including some 70 per cent of refugees in Africa.27 In sub-Saharan Africa, 7 out of 

10 refugees reside in often isolated and insecure refugee camps, with restrictions on 

movements affecting employment, education and health and other services.28 They 

become dependent on subsistence-level assistance, or less, and lead lives of poverty, 

frustration and unrealized potential. 

__________________ 

 25  International Fund for Agricultural Development, “Statistics and key facts about indigenous 

peoples”, available at www.ruralpovertyportal.org. 

 26  Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, “Report on the global AIDS epidemic” (2008). 

 27  Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, 2008 Global Trends: Refugees, 

Asylum-seekers, Returnees, Internally Displaced and Stateless Persons (2009). 

 28  Ibid., The State of The World’s Refugees 2006: Human Displacement in the New Millennium 

(2006). 

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 III. Lessons learned for accelerating progress in achieving the 

Millennium Development Goals 

 A. Lessons learned29 

  National ownership 

48. National ownership of development strategies is fundamental, as one-size-fits- 

all policies and programmes are bound to fail owing to wide variations among 

countries in terms of their capacity (resources, institutions, administration) and 

historical and geographical circumstances. Ownership is also vital to ensure national 

commitment to development goals. Successful countries have pursued pragmatic, 

heterodox mixtures of policies, with enhanced domestic capacities. Countries should 

therefore be encouraged to design and implement their own development strategies 

and to strengthen their domestic capacities. Global partnerships should support such 

national development strategies and domestic capacity-building efforts.  

  Sustained and equitable growth 

49. Sustained and equitable growth based on dynamic structural economic change 

is necessary for making substantial progress in reducing poverty. It also enables 

faster progress towards the other Millennium Development Goals. While economic 

growth is necessary, it is not sufficient for progress on reducing poverty. The 

countries that were most successful in reducing extreme poverty managed to sustain 

high economic growth over prolonged periods, and most managed to do so by 

jumpstarting the growth process by increasing agricultural productivity followed by 

dynamic growth of modern industry and services sectors. Effective industrial 

policies typically underpinned the economic transformation, and high growth 

facilitated job creation and income growth for workers. Income growth underpinned 

greater resource availability, facilitating — when combined with adequate social 

policies — better coverage and quality of social services in support of the 

achievement of the other Millennium Development Goals.  

  Macroeconomic policies 

50. Forward-looking macroeconomic policies are needed to safeguard the 

sustainability of public investment strategies in support of broad-based growth and 

the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals. Macroeconomic policies 

should not focus narrowly on debt stabilization and curbing inflation, but should 

ultimately be supportive of growth of real output and employment. It is often 

necessary, therefore, to relax unnecessarily stringent fiscal and monetary restrictions 

and to use countercyclical fiscal and monetary policies to boost employment and 

incomes and to minimize the impact of external and other shocks on poverty. This 

requires countries to strengthen mobilization of domestic resources and adopt 

mechanisms that promote countercyclical policy responses. Enhanced international 

cooperation to strengthen tax revenue collection and increase sovereign debt 

sustainability can greatly buttress the fiscal capacities of all Governments. 

__________________ 

 29  For evidence and an analytical discussion, see Rethinking Poverty: Report on the World Social 

Situation 2010 and the work of the United Nations Development Group Millennium 

Development Goal Gap Task Force (see www.undg.org). See also World Bank, Economic 

Growth in the 1990s: Learning from a Decade of Reform (2005). 

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  Social services 

51. Ensuring universal access to social services and providing a social protection 

floor with wide coverage are essential to consolidate and achieve further gains in 

achieving the Millennium Development Goals. The social consequences of 

economic crises have been most severe in countries where social protection systems 

were weakest and least adequate, made worse by their weak institutional and fiscal 

capacity. More importantly, when growth collapses owing to external shocks, 

natural disasters or health epidemics, societal cohesion may rupture, leading to civil 

violence. Not surprisingly, civil violence is more prevalent and also more likely to 

recur in poorer societies, especially where Governments are unwilling or unable to 

afford social protection or promote social integration. Countries should therefore 

have universal social protection floors in place to support the maintenance and 

regeneration of livelihoods, particularly of disadvantaged and vulnerable groups. 

The “social protection floor” concept promotes a set of social transfers and rights 

allowing individuals to access essential goods and services. Social protection 

schemes are not merely desirable, but are a sine qua non for inclusive development 

by addressing inequality and social exclusion. Social development should be 

considered broadly to include: support for smallholder agriculture, nutrition 

programmes, school meals, access to primary health and education, access to safe 

water and sanitation, and support for indigent, disabled and otherwise impoverished 

households. Food-for-work programmes can often provide a vital buffer. The 

provision of basic social protection schemes (like social pensions and other cash 

transfer programmes) for all are fiscally affordable for most developing 

economies,30 but not for the poorest, unless they receive ample international 

assistance to finance such programmes.  

  Inequality 

52. Inequality and social exclusion, which limit the contribution of growth to the 

Millennium Development Goals, must be addressed. Inequalities of access, social 

protection and opportunities need to be greatly reduced. While most interventions 

related to the Goals primarily seek to redress inequalities in access to services  

(e.g., employment, health, education, water and sanitation), other interventions put 

greater emphasis on inequalities in social protection and economic opportunities. 

  The community 

53. Holistic, community-led strategies are more effective than stand-alone 

programmes. The Millennium Villages project, supported by the United Nations 

Development Programme (UNDP) with many partner institutions in civil society, 

academia and business, has shown that synergistic investments in agriculture, 

health, education, infrastructure, business development and environmental 

conservation can lead to rapid and considerable progress in food security, school 

attendance and performance, reduced hunger and improved livelihoods in a short 

period of time. Governments and development partners should put more emphasis 

on such holistic approaches in both rural and urban contexts, and should scale up 

successful efforts currently under way.  

__________________ 

 30  International Labour Organization, “Can low-income countries afford basic social security?” 

Social security policy briefings, No. 3 (Geneva, 2008). 

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  Interventions 

54. Targeted intervention programmes, based on complementary public and private 

investments, have proven successful and have been crucial for progress towards 

achieving most Millennium Development Goals. Investments in smallholder 

agriculture are vital for fighting hunger; investments in schools and teachers are 

vital for universal primary education; investments in public health are vital for 

Goals 4, 5 and 6. Investments in water and sanitation are vital for Goal 7. When 

public investments are targeted and of sufficient scale, progress in achieving the 

Goals is more likely to be rapid. When public investments are not forthcoming, as in 

efforts to ensure maternal deliveries, then progress has been modest at best.  

55. Accelerating interventions is feasible and is of paramount importance in order 

to speed up progress where current trends make achievement of the Millennium 

Development Goals unlikely. Targeted interventions can quickly improve people’s 

lives by providing access to essential goods and services. Examples include 

providing subsidized agricultural inputs, scaling-up school meal programmes, 

eliminating user fees for education and health care, and providing conditional cash 

transfers to poor households. While such measures should not substitute for well- 

planned and managed national development strategies backed by responsive 

partnerships for development, they should not wait for longer-term structural 

transformations as delays have irreversible adverse consequences for the poorest 

and most vulnerable.  

  Financial support 

56. Adequate, consistent and predictable financial support, as well as a coherent 

and predictable policy environment, at both the national and international levels, are 

crucial for achievement of the Millennium Development Goals. Lack of adequate 

and predictable international financing has been an important constraint. There is an 

urgent need to broaden and strengthen partnerships to ensure supportive 

international frameworks for trade, taxation, technology and climate change 

mitigation and adaptation to sustain long-term human development; and for 

sufficient, predictable and well-coordinated financing for development, including 

national budgets, ODA, philanthropy, debt relief and new financing sources, 

instruments, arrangements and institutions.  

  Governance 

57. Governance and institutional implementation capacities at the country level, 

which are both development outcomes and desirable ends in themselves, can 

contribute to accelerating progress towards achieving the Millennium Development 

Goals. Countries can accelerate progress by adhering to the fundamental norms and 

values of the Millennium Declaration, including human rights, gender equality and 

democratic governance. In order to achieve the Goals, integrity, accountability and 

transparency are crucial for managing resources, recovering assets and combating the 

abuse, corruption and organized crime that are adversely affecting the poor. 

Democratic governance, as a process of empowering people and communities, is 

essential for human development. “Good governance” goals should however be 

pursued in conjunction with development, especially in the face of limited fiscal 

resources and administrative capacities. Pragmatic developmental governance reforms 

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to address bottlenecks in the process of accelerating development and progress 

towards the Millennium Development Goals should be emphasized in the short term. 

  Monitoring 

58. Better monitoring and data are vital for better design of and timely 

intervention in programmes and policies. It is also crucial for ensuring 

accountability by development partners and stakeholders.31 Although slowly 

improving, the availability of reliable statistics for monitoring development remains 

inadequate in many poor countries and the challenge of building effective in-country 

capacity to produce better policy-relevant data remains huge. Although statistics are 

increasingly recognized as an indispensable tool for development, resources devoted 

to statistics are still very limited. With support from development partners, countries 

also need to increase public expenditure for national statistical systems to 

effectively monitor progress towards the Millennium Development Goals and other 

development indicators in order to better inform policy interventions.  

  Key success factors  

Key success factors32 are listed below: 

 1. Effective Government leadership and national ownership of development 

strategies. 

 2. Effective policies to support implementation, defined in this context as 

laws, regulations, standards, administrative procedures and guidelines 

(general or specific to the Millennium Development Goals) that affect 

private behaviour and the conduct of service providers and others with 

whom they must interact. 

 3. Improved quantity, quality and focus of investments, financed both by 

domestic sources and international development assistance, based on a 

holistic approach, including smallholder agriculture, health, education, 

infrastructure, business development and environmental conservation. 

 4. Appropriate institutional capacity to deliver quality services equitably on 

a national scale, such as adequate facilities, competent staff, appropriate 

supplies and equipment and effective monitoring and evaluation. 

 5. Civil society and community involvement and empowerment, which 

enhances the likelihood of success by giving individuals and 

communities the ability to take charge of their own lives. 

 6. Effective global partnerships, involving all relevant stakeholders, 

including donor Governments, local communities, non-governmental 

organizations, the private sector and foundations, with mutual 

accountability of all stakeholders.  

__________________ 

 31  Millennium Development Goal tracking and monitoring at the global, regional and country 

levels, briefing note prepared by the Bureau for Development Policy, United Nations 

Development Programme, 27 August 2009. 

 32  For further details, see “Accelerating progress towards the Millennium Development Goals” 

(United Nations Development Programme, forthcoming) and the work of the United Nations 

Development Group Millennium Development Goal Task Force. 

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 7. Good governance by donors and recipients, which, inter alia, involves 

timely and predictable delivery of aid by donors on the one hand, and 

enhanced State and societal capacity of recipient countries to manage 

scaled-up resource flows transparently and with accountability on the 

other. 

59. One significant achievement of the past decade is that national Governments 

and their partners, even in countries lagging far behind on many Millennium 

Development Goals, have a good sense of the programmes and interventions 

required to meet the Goals. The three critical challenges, in most cases, have been to 

have in place a feasible national scale-up plan, to obtain adequate financing based 

on both domestic and foreign sources, including development assistance, and to 

develop well-functioning delivery mechanisms for public investment and service 

delivery. The success stories highlight, for each Millennium Development Goal, 

how these critical success factors came together to produce remarkable results. 

While country characteristics (geographic, demographic, economic, cultural) 

inevitably vary and the specific interventions that have been successfully 

implemented differ with country specificities, the examples demonstrate these 

common success factors. 

60. The success stories underscore the imperative of a holistic approach and 

confirm that positive results across the Millennium Development Goals and the 

broader enabling environment enhance the likelihood of sustained progress towards 

each of the Goals. They help define our collective accountability, but must be seen 

holistically. The synergies among the Goals are clear and indisputable, as 

demonstrated in the Millennium Villages. Taking advantage of these will reduce 

costs, increase effectiveness and catalyse local action. The education target, for 

example, requires progress on health. The health targets require progress on hunger 

and nutrition. The hunger target requires progress in agriculture and nutrition, and 

so on. There are many positive examples of integrated approaches to the Goals 

yielding tremendous success. We must learn from these examples and scale up 

successful interventions. The goals, targets and indicators of the Millennium 

Development Goals were conceived to reflect an integrated approach to 

development as worded in the Millennium Declaration and the 2005 World Summit 

Outcome document. 

 B. Accelerating progress  

61. The critical question today is how to dramatically increase the pace of change 

on the ground in the remaining five years, so that the promises of 2000 translate into 

real progress for the world’s poorest people, particularly at this time of global 

economic downturn. In the light of the 2015 deadline, accelerating progress is 

essential; with barely half a decade left, much more accelerated progress is required, 

especially for the poorest countries.  

62. Significant gaps still remain and many targets are not on track to being 

achieved in a good number of countries. Moreover, challenges persist in areas such 

as environmental sustainability, even in countries that have made impressive gains 

in reducing poverty over the past decade, including large parts of Asia. Rollbacks on 

progress as a result of the food, fuel and financial crises, and emerging issues such 

as climate change, have compounded the challenge. Delayed job recovery from the 

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global economic downturn remains a major challenge for poverty reduction in the 

years to come, and climate change is likely to have devastating impacts on 

vulnerable countries and communities. 

63. Although the primary focus of the Millennium Development Goals is 

developing countries, where deprivation is most stark, deficits in human 

development are to be found in developed countries as well, especially among 

specific marginalized communities. Vulnerability, discrimination, social exclusion 

and gender disparities still persist in advanced countries and must not be 

overlooked. 

64. As the country success stories demonstrate, targeted, near-term, “acceleration” 

interventions — such as subsidizing crucial agricultural inputs, immunization, 

eliminating user fees for education and health services and addressing human 

resource constraints in health — are still of paramount importance to speed up 

progress where current trends make achievement of the Millennium Development 

Goals unlikely. New technology-based solutions that did not exist when the Goals 

were endorsed, can and should be leveraged to allow for rapid scaling up. The most 

important of these technologies involve use of mobile telephones, broadband 

Internet, and other information and communications technologies.  

65. At the same time, interventions need to be framed in the context of national 

development strategies that define actions to ensure sustainability of the results in 

the long term. Especially, even if not exclusively, in times of global economic, food 

and climate volatility, when Millennium Development Goals reversals are a real 

possibility, creating the enabling environment essential to sustaining progress 

towards the Goals can be just as important as accelerating achievements. While a 

short-term perspective, focused on securing immediate gains, can be effective in 

saving lives and alleviating suffering, it should not be understood as exclusive of, or 

even incompatible with, longer-term structural changes necessary to sustain 

progress over time. 

66. The very fact that the challenges of poverty, food, energy, global recession and 

climate change are all interrelated has presented the global community with a 

unique opportunity to tackle them together. The critical requirement for a “global 

green new deal” is a commitment by all to frontload large public investments in 

renewable energy in order to achieve economies of scale and learning, generate 

employment in both rich and poor countries, and lay the foundation for a new phase 

of global economic and technological advancement. Besides benefiting the poor, 

such investment would also lay the basis for sustainable development, stimulate 

complementary investments in infrastructure and agriculture, and help raise 

agricultural productivity, thus enhancing food security and creating decent jobs for 

the rural poor.33   

67. The main elements of this framework include ensuring that responses to the 

economic downturn provide support for what has worked in the past, especially 

protecting the growth momentum in developing countries, sustaining support for 

integrated poverty eradication programmes, enhancing the reach of targeted 

interventions, laying the infrastructural foundations for a new era of sustainable 

__________________ 

 33  The World Economic and Social Survey 2009 contains a detailed proposal for synergistic 

achievement of developmental and climate goals. See also, World Bank, World Development 

Report 2010: Development and Climate Change. 

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economic development, and protecting poor countries and communities from the 

adverse impacts of global crises. 

68. Both acceleration and sustainability of progress must therefore be pursued 

concomitantly. Accelerated and sustainable progress towards achievement of the 

Millennium Development Goals will be contingent on our combined efforts to do 

three things much more effectively than we have been able to do in the past:  

 (a) To scale up implementation of proven and innovative interventions in 

such key domains as gender, sustainable agriculture (including inputs for 

smallholders and sustainable environmental management), energy, education and 

health. This effort needs to be backed by targeted investment, informed community 

participation, and adequate institutional capacities to effectively mobilize and 

manage financial resources and deliver public services;  

 (b) To build the structural and economic foundations to support and sustain 

progress and mitigate risks of reversal in achieving the Millennium Development 

Goals through effective social and economic policies and institutions grounded in 

universal rights and supportive of structural changes and social cohesion, improved 

conditions for peace, security and good governance, public and private investments 

that lead to faster pro-poor growth, and effective measures to ensure environmental 

sustainability; 

 (c) To broaden and strengthen partnerships to ensure greater global and 

regional integration, a supportive international framework for trade, technology 

transfer and climate change mitigation and adaptation in order to sustain long-term 

human development; and to ensure sufficient, predictable, and well-coordinated 

financing for development, including national budgets, ODA, philanthropy, debt 

relief and new financing instruments. This third element builds on the recognition 

that both within and across countries, no single stakeholder can achieve the first two 

strategic priorities on their own. 

69. Specific Millennium Development Goals will require specific acceleration 

efforts, as outlined below: 

  Poverty and hunger (Millennium Development Goal 1) 

70. To achieve Millennium Development Goal 1: 

 (a) Poor countries with large agricultural sectors should focus on bolstering 

agricultural productivity and output quality. A sharp increase in agricultural 

productivity can accomplish several things simultaneously: (i) reduced hunger; 

(ii) reduced child mortality through improved nutrition; (iii) reduced maternal 

mortality through improved nutrition; and (iv) higher household incomes and 

economic growth; 

 (b) To boost productivity, smallholder farmers must gain immediate access 

to inputs — such as fertilizer, high-yield seeds, equipment, small-scale irrigation, 

technical extension and post-harvest storage — in order to modernize and 

commercialize traditional farming. At the same time, sustainable agricultural 

practices need to be introduced. Intensive farming, if not properly regulated, can 

lead to the depletion of water sources, pollution by chemical fertilizers and 

pesticides, and a loss of biodiversity; 

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 (c) Producing more food directly affects only one aspect of food security34 

(i.e., availability) and must be complemented by other interventions to address 

inequities of access to food and to bolster nutrition. Food security programmes 

should therefore also address issues of access to adequate nutritious food (taking 

into account local food consumption preferences and different nutritional 

requirements) and implement integrated nutrition programmes for the poor and 

vulnerable. In the short term, hunger hotspots within countries should be a top 

priority. Prevention-based interventions such as the distribution of vital 

micronutrient fortification and supplementation, as well as targeted support of 

children through the provision of school-based meals, must also be complemented 

by treatment-based interventions such as the treatment of severe and moderate 

levels of  acute malnutrition and mass de-worming for children; 

 (d) Access to decent and productive employment and promotion of 

entrepreneurship is fundamental to pro-poor growth and efforts to address poverty 

and hunger. Successful programmes, especially employment-intensive initiatives, 

small and medium-sized enterprise promotion, employment guarantee schemes and 

conditional cash transfers, as well as vocational and technical training and 

entrepreneurial skills development, especially for unemployed youth, can yield 

positive results in reducing poverty and should be more widely applied to cover 

larger parts of the population, especially women and in rural areas;  

 (e) Close attention should be paid to the recommendations contained in the 

Global Jobs Pact, adopted by the Governments and employers’ and workers’ 

delegates of the International Labour Organization (ILO) 183 member States. The 

Pact proposes a range of tested crisis-response and recovery measures that focus on 

employment and social protection. It is not a one-size-fits-all solution, but a 

portfolio of tried and tested policy options that countries can adapt to their specific 

needs and situation. 

  Education (Millennium Development Goal 2) 

71. To achieve Millennium Development Goal 2: 

 (a) National education systems need to be strengthened by addressing 

infrastructure, human resource and governance constraints, backed by international 

donor support; 

 (b) When scaling up education budgets, inequalities across income, gender 

and geographical, linguistic and ethnic lines should be addressed when allocating 

resources. Interventions should address problems of access to schooling from the 

supply and demand side. On the supply side, adequate services need to be provided 

and made accessible based on a robust needs analysis. On the demand side, targeted 

measures need to be put in place to attract children from poor households, rural 

areas or minority ethnic groups to school. Successful examples of making primary 

education more available, accessible and affordable include abolishing school fees, 

subsidies for other costs (e.g., textbooks, uniforms and transportation) and 

innovative approaches to school (e.g., community schools, mobile schooling, 

distance learning and multi-grade teaching). Programmes strengthening linkages 

between education, health and nutrition, such as school meal programmes and social 

__________________ 

 34  Food security exists when all people, at all times, have access to sufficient, safe and nutritious 

food for an active and healthy life. 

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protection measures (e.g., cash transfers and social insurance), have also proven 

successful; 

 (c) Progression through the school system — retention, completion and 

learning achievement — is another challenge that needs to be urgently addressed. 

Appropriate learning environments and quality of education can be ensured through 

the development of child-friendly schools, effective and comprehensive teacher 

strategies (e.g., recruitment and retention policies, underpinned by initial and  

in-service teacher education and development; teacher status and working 

conditions), enhanced pedagogical support and learner-relevant curricula, 

educational materials and languages of instruction.  

  Gender equality (Millennium Development Goal 3) 

72. To achieve Millennium Development Goal 3: 

 (a) Key barriers to girls’ education need to be removed, including by 

providing scholarships, cash transfers and eliminating user fees; support for girls, 

especially at the secondary level where too many girls are forced to leave school 

because of school expenses, should be expanded; completion and attendance rates 

need to be tracked; the quality of education must be improved; and investment in 

girls’ enrolment in secondary school must be scaled up;  

 (b) The generation of full and productive employment and the creation of 

decent work and income for those beyond school age must be made the primary goal 

of macroeconomic, social and development policies, including by promoting equal 

skills development and employment opportunities, reducing wage gaps between 

women and men; 

 (c) Social protection measures and labour laws and policies that are gender- 

responsive should be introduced; and legal protections for the most vulnerable 

women workers introduced and enforced. Particular attention should be paid to 

gender gaps in school-to-work transition for young people, making education and 

training relevant to labour market demand, based on a life-cycle and rights-based 

approach;  

 (d) Positive action to improve the numbers and influence of women in all 

political decision-making should be introduced, including by investing in women’s 

leadership in local decision-making structures and by creating an even playing field 

for men and women within political parties. With few exceptions, the 26 countries 

that have achieved or surpassed the goal of women securing 30 per cent of seats in 

national assemblies over the past five years have introduced some form of positive 

action; 

 (e) National-level capacity to track and report on progress, gaps and 

opportunities should be improved through better generation and use of sex- 

disaggregated data and statistics, including on time use; 

 (f) Women’s work burden must be reduced through investment in 

infrastructure, labour saving technologies and gender-responsive economic stimulus 

packages; 

 (g) Accountability for enhancing women’s rights and ending gender 

discrimination should be strengthened — in line with commitments made in the 

Committee for the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, the Beijing 

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Platform for Action and relevant ILO conventions — including through eliminating 

inequalities in access to land and property and by investing in implementation of 

laws, policies and programmes to prevent and address violence against women; 

 (h) Investments for gender equality must be scaled up, including by 

institutionalizing “gender-responsive budgeting”, as part of public financial 

management reforms to ensure that financial commitments advance gender equality. 

  Health (Millennium Development Goals 4, 5 and 6) 

73. To achieve Millennium Development Goals 4, 5 and 6: 

 (a) Strengthening national health systems with the active participation of 

civil society organizations can significantly improve both maternal and child health. 

Strengthening health systems involves addressing human resource constraints, 

building new infrastructure, upgrading and improving supply systems, and 

improving governance and stewardship through a larger role in informal, formal and 

decentralized systems of health protection. Additional international development 

assistance is vital for scaling up health systems in low-income countries;  

 (b) Targeted interventions in key areas — such as immunization 

programmes, increasing the number of trained midwives and the use of insecticide- 

treated bednets — are known to have strong positive impacts but are more 

sustainable when embedded in a strategy aimed at providing comprehensive 

universal primary health care;  

 (c) Interventions that have the greatest impact on health-related Millennium 

Development Goal targets, such as universal access to sexual and reproductive 

health, immunization and key child-survival interventions, HIV prevention, 

mitigation and treatment, prevention and treatment of neglected tropical diseases, 

prevention and treatment services for malaria and tuberculosis and low-cost access 

to safe water and sanitation should be urgently scaled up and made universal to 

accelerate progress on the health Millennium Development Goals; 

 (d) There is a need for a scale up of global financing, but it needs to be done 

in predictable ways. Targeted disease-control programmes have been highly 

successful; 

 (e) Specific regions and vulnerable and marginalized groups should be 

prioritized (with special attention to the poor, rural populations, women and youth) 

with a view to extending health protection to those in need and the excluded; 

 (f) The capacity of all stakeholders to address issues of gender equality and 

delivery of health services should be strengthened and partnerships with civil 

society organizations, including women’s groups, non-governmental organizations 

and the private sector, should be promoted. 

  Promoting sustainable development (Millennium Development Goal 7) 

74. One of the difficulties in making progress towards the overall objective of 

Millennium Development Goal 7 is the lack of a framework or means of integrating 

different components of environmental sustainability. While Goal 7 contains 

elements that contribute to environmental sustainability, when added together, they 

do not provide a full picture. This weakness can be exacerbated at the national level 

if countries mechanically adopt the global set of targets and indicators without 

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explicitly linking or tailoring them to national priorities. What is needed is for 

countries to adopt the principle of environmental sustainability and then adapt that 

principle to national priorities and policies, the local context and subnational or 

ecosystem specificities. 

  Ecological sustainability and addressing climate change 

75. Efforts to accelerate progress towards the Millennium Development Goals 

must take account of the rapidly changing development landscape transformed by 

ecosystem decline, including the challenges posed by climate change. Pro-poor 

development centred on natural resources can be pursued at a local or community 

level or on a national scale. Both approaches are necessary for maximum poverty 

reduction. Comprehensive and coherent development planning frameworks, 

including national sustainable development strategies, are a useful means of 

integrating all of the aspects related to environmental sustainability that are relevant 

to any given country in a balanced manner. This is one of the conclusions drawn 

from the indicators that are making good progress. Furthermore, successful 

strategies tend to build on the active involvement of the local and municipal 

authorities and population and of all relevant stakeholders in the planning, 

programming and budgeting cycle, as well as the adoption of strong national 

legislation with mandatory targets and commitments towards the attainment of the 

objectives. It is important that public-private partnerships ensure genuine 

contributions by the private sector that would not have occurred without such 

partnerships.  

76. Greater efforts are needed in both developed and developing countries to 

promote alternative renewable energy sources and low-emission technologies. 

Policy reforms to substantially reduce perverse subsidies for carbon-intensive 

development, and to create positive incentives, appropriate taxes and other 

initiatives (such as a global feed-in tariff arrangement to encourage renewal energy 

generation and use) that will encourage the adoption of renewable energy sources 

and low-emission technologies, are urgently needed. The internationally subsidized 

generation of renewable energy as the basis for development in developing countries 

will address the perceived trade-off between addressing climate change at the 

expense of development and will in addition provide major new opportunities for 

private investment to emerge from the economic crisis and generate considerable 

employment.  

77. Greatly expanded investment in sustainable ecosystem management is needed 

to reduce the vulnerability of the poor and to maximize the contribution of natural 

resources to rural development. Poor people need secure resource rights and other 

enabling conditions for poverty reduction. Biodiversity protection measures must 

respect indigenous peoples’ traditional rights to marine- and forest-based 

livelihoods.  

78. National action plans and investment in energy efficiency and renewable 

energy will be key to shifting to low carbon growth, creating “green” employment 

and reducing poverty.  

  Safe drinking water and sanitation 

79. Considering the lack of progress on sanitation, delivering on sanitation targets 

will require considerable political will together with significant financial, technical 

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and human resources. Past experience suggests that the main problems have been 

over-reliance on supply-driven approaches, neglect of user needs and emphasis on 

large-scale projects, often due to public sector neglect or relinquishment of 

responsibility, often due to fiscal constraints. A demand-responsive approach is 

almost always constrained by poor people not having enough purchasing power to 

pay for improved sanitation. Retaining public provisioning of such services often 

conserves scarce governance and regulatory capabilities in developing countries, 

while achieving more universal access.  

80. Integrated national water strategies addressing the four main uses of fresh 

water — agriculture, households, industry and ecosystem services — must robustly 

respond to the growing water shortages, which are exacerbated by climate change.  

  Reducing slum populations  

81. Cities in developing countries around the world are home to rising numbers of 

poor people and do not have the capacity to create jobs to sustainably absorb the 

population influx and achieve the necessary progress needed to meet the Millennium 

Development Goals. In the face of rapid urbanization, these challenges will only 

become more acute unless adequate corrective actions are taken. These measures 

should include sound urban planning, which is essential for the sustainable growth 

of urban centres. They should stipulate the roles of the key stakeholders — local 

authorities, organizations of the urban poor, private sector (formal and informal), 

central Government, district, state and provincial authorities and line ministries. 

Ultimately, more balanced growth, including rural development, is the only long- 

term solution insofar as it addresses the pull and push factors involved in rural- 

urban migration.  

  Expanding and strengthening international partnerships (Millennium 

Development Goal 8) 

82. In the countdown to 2015, amidst a global economic crisis, the need to 

accelerate delivery on Millennium Development Goal 8 commitments has now 

reached emergency proportions, rather than simply being a matter of urgency.  

  Official development assistance 

83. Although ODA reached its highest level ever in 2008, there remain large gaps 

in meeting existing and long-standing commitments. The Gleneagles Group of Eight 

(G-8) ODA target for 2010 is approximately $154 billion in present values, and 

additional flows of $35 billion by 2010 will need to be delivered this year to achieve 

this target. Africa would need an extra $20 billion of the increase in ODA in 2010 in 

order to reach the Gleneagles target level of $63 billion for the region by 2010. In 

2007, ODA to the least developed countries was equivalent to 0.09 per cent of the 

gross national income of the countries of the Organization for Economic 

Cooperation and Development (OECD), with less than half the OECD Development 

Assistance Committee (DAC) countries meeting the 0.15 to 0.20 per cent target for 

aid to the least developed countries.  

84. The distribution of development assistance remains highly skewed. Although 

the share of ODA flows allocated to the poorer countries increased somewhat 

between 2000 and 2007, with sub-Saharan Africa continuing to be the largest 

recipient of ODA, having more than doubled receipts in current dollar terms, most 

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of the increase in ODA since 2000 has been limited to a few post-conflict countries, 

including Iraq and Afghanistan. Together, these two countries received about a sixth 

of country allocations from DAC countries, even though they account for less than 

2 per cent of the total population of the developing countries. African aid lags far 

behind commitments and far behind needs. Detailed analyses by the International 

Monetary Fund and UNDP have shown that highly worthy Millennium Development 

Goal-based programmes are unfunded because of non-delivery of promised donor 

funding.35 

85. There is an urgent need to improve the quality, predictability and durability of 

aid, in addition to the quantity. Developing countries and their partners will have to 

reduce the fragmentation of assistance and ensure that ODA supports national 

development strategies. Pooling of donor resources into multi-donor funds has 

proved time and again to be a fruitful approach, with great successes, for example, 

in the control of several infectious diseases. The 2005 Paris Declaration on Aid 

Effectiveness and the 2008 Accra Agenda for Action set out a number of principles 

and practices to enhance aid effectiveness which need to be implemented urgently. 

The $20 billion over three years pledged for food security by the G-8 at L’Aquila, 

Italy, and the Group of Twenty (G-20) at Pittsburgh, United States of America, 

should be provided urgently to initiate implementation of the comprehensive plan of 

action for smallholder farmers, notably through the launch of a new multi-donor 

trust fund.  

  Trade and development 

86. The failure to reach agreement in the Doha Round of multilateral trade 

negotiations represents a major gap in strengthening the global partnership for 

achieving the Millennium Development Goals by depriving developing countries of 

the benefits of more timely completion of a truly developmental round of 

negotiations. As currently envisaged, the Doha Round falls short of the original 

developmental promise that was intended. This would include effective market 

access for agricultural, manufactured and service exports, particularly in sectors and 

modes of supply of interest to the developing countries, including modes 1 (cross- 

border supply) and 4 (movement of natural persons), and removal of trade distorting 

agricultural subsidies. In the negotiations there has been some progress in reaching 

agreement on a range of hitherto intractable issues, but progress on other key issues, 

including implementation issues and concerns of developing countries, as well as 

special and differential treatment, is falling short of what had been envisioned. In 

addition, the process of accession to the World Trade Organization by developing 

countries and countries with economies in transition should be facilitated, consistent 

with World Trade Organization agreements and their development status.  

87. There are large regional and sectoral variations in market-access conditions 

between developing countries and least developed countries, as well as among least 

developed countries. Generally, developing countries that do not fall into the 

category of least developed countries continue to face higher average tariffs than 

least developed countries for their exports, including agriculture, textiles and 

clothing. Since 2000, small-island and African least developed countries have 

gained substantial preferences in major markets for their exports, while Asian least 

__________________ 

 35  United Nations Development Programme and International Monetary Fund, “Scaling up 

development assistance to Africa: the Gleneagles scenario approach” (2009). 

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developed countries, which tend to be more competitive, continue to face higher 

tariffs and receive lower duty-free access, especially on their clothing and textile 

exports. However, the preferential access of least developed countries, compared 

with all developing countries, continues to be eroded except in agricultural exports.  

88. Aid for trade is also critical in helping least developed countries, which 

continue to experience difficulties in fully utilizing preferential schemes and in 

overcoming supply-side constraints. In 2007, total aid for trade commitments 

increased by 8 per cent from 2006 and by over 20 per cent from the 2002-2005 

baseline; but more than half the amount was provided to only 11 countries.  

89. Donors need to deliver on commitments to substantially increase technical, 

financial and political support for aid for trade and the Enhanced Integrated 

Framework initiative. Aid for trade is especially vital to finance export-oriented 

infrastructure (e.g., roads, ports and power) to support the export competitiveness of 

low-income countries. Developed countries also need to honour the 2005 pledge to 

eliminate, by 2013, all export subsidies including on agriculture, which remain a 

major distortion affecting trade and farm production in developing countries. Even 

though overall agricultural support in relation to the GDP of developed countries 

declined further in 2007, it remained high in absolute terms and in relation to ODA.  

90. Since late 2007, the multilateral trading system has come under heightened 

pressure as the food and financial crises have given rise to new waves of 

protectionism. It is crucial to maintain an open, equitable, rule-based, predictable 

and non-discriminatory multilateral trading system during the crises by ensuring that 

protectionist measures are dismantled as soon as possible and that new measures, 

including new non-tariff barriers, are resisted. 

  Debt sustainability 

91. Substantial progress has been made with regard to debt relief, but full delivery 

on the heavily indebted poor countries (HIPC) initiative requires continued efforts 

from the international community. By September 2009, 35 out of 40 eligible 

countries had qualified for debt relief under the initiative, 26 of which had qualified 

for irrevocable debt relief under the HIPC Initiative and the Multilateral Debt Relief 

(MDR) initiative. The 35 qualifying countries have received, or are expected to 

receive, debt relief totalling $57 billion under the HIPC initiative and $23 billion in 

additional debt relief under the MDR initiative. 

92. Prior to the global financial turmoil, high commodity prices and strong trade 

growth had improved the export revenues of many developing countries. 

Consequently, the burden of servicing external debt for the developing countries as 

a group had fallen from almost 13 per cent of export earnings in 2000 to below 4 per 

cent in 2007. This has allowed the HIPC countries to increase their social 

expenditure, but this trend is being reversed as developing country exports and 

commodity prices have fallen starkly as a consequence of the current crisis. The 

ratios of external debt to GDP and external debt service to exports for developing 

countries have risen significantly since the last quarter of 2008. Developing 

countries also face significant reversals in access to new external financing because 

of the global credit crunch.  

93. The combination of these factors is creating increasing balance-of-payment 

problems for a large number of countries. Rising risk premiums on borrowing by 

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developing countries and currency depreciations are also increasing the cost of 

external public borrowing. This, in turn, is limiting the ability of developing 

countries to undertake countercyclical measures and to sustain adequate levels of 

public spending on infrastructure, education, health and social protection. In the 

light of the global crisis, measures such as additional concessional financing, 

standstills on debt obligations, debt relief and debt restructuring should be 

considered to help countries facing severe financial distress as a consequence of the 

crisis to avoid harsh domestic adjustments jeopardizing the achievement of the 

Millennium Development Goals and avoid public indebtedness reaching 

unsustainable levels.  

  Access to affordable essential medicines  

94. Many essential medicines are inaccessible to the poor in developing countries 

for two main reasons. Firstly, there are large gaps in the availability of medicines in 

both the public and private sectors; secondly, the prices of the medicines that are 

available are high in relation to their international reference prices. The 

multinational drug companies, based mostly in developed countries, should be 

encouraged to practise dual pricing policies, i.e., lower prices for developing 

countries.  

95. Access to affordable essential medicines remains a concern, particularly as the 

response to outbreaks of contagious diseases and the development of resistant 

strains of infection create new difficulties. Basic packages of essential medical 

services require more adaptation to local needs, and better alignment to Millennium 

Development Goal health targets. The affordability of medicines is expected to 

deteriorate as a result of the global economic crisis. Incomes for many are falling 

and currency depreciations are further pushing up the cost of imported medicines. 

The situation is most difficult for countries with poorly funded or inefficiently run 

public sector procurement and distribution systems, countries where poorer 

households have no access to health insurance or public supplies of medicines, and 

countries where medicines are mostly brand names, rather than generic. Actions are 

needed to protect low-income families from increases in the cost of medicines 

brought about by the crisis.  

  Access to new technologies 

96. Advances in technology provide an opportunity to accelerate poverty reduction 

through pathways not available to countries that developed earlier. Reducing the 

technology gap can accelerate leap-frogging to innovative and low-cost 

development solutions. Such technology facilitates communication and information 

exchange. Simple access to mobile telephones translates into reductions in mortality 

rates through provision of information about prevention and treatment and 

improvement of transport to vital interventions (such as emergency obstetric care), 

long-distance learning, better chances of survival and adaptation by sharing 

information on the location of pastures and water using mobile telephony, and 

empowerment of community health workers and other health personnel.  

97. Considerable progress had been made in access to information and 

communications technologies, especially in cellular telephony, in recent years. Use 

of the Internet has increased steadily, with almost one fourth of the world’s 

population having Internet access. However, less than 18 per cent of the population 

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in developing countries was using the Internet (and only 4 per cent in the least 

developed countries), compared with over 60 per cent in developed countries.36 

Greater efforts are needed, especially through strengthened public-private 

partnerships, to close the large gaps that remain in access and affordability across 

countries and income groups.  

98. Addressing the challenges of climate change has necessitated further access to 

new technologies. For both climate change mitigation and adaptation, massive 

investments are needed in research, development and deployment of technologies.  

 IV. The way forward  

99. The Millennium Development Goals work by engaging national and global 

society as a whole. The actions of individuals, organizations, private companies and 

Governments in the cause of international development cooperation should be 

guided by the key principles set out below:  

   Guiding principles for an action agenda  

  

 1. National ownership and leadership complemented by supportive global 

programmes, measures and policies that align with national priorities and 

respect national sovereignty are essential.  

 2. The interdependence of human rights, gender equality, governance, 

development and peace and security must be recognized to attain success and 

sustainability.  

 3. The need to look at the Millennium Development Goals through a gender 

lens is critical, since women and girls typically face the greatest burdens of 

extreme poverty, hunger and disease. All of the action areas need to include 

specific strategies for tackling challenges faced by girls and women. On top of 

this, critical actions are needed to focus on overarching priorities for gender 

equality, including challenges of women’s political representation and the 

intolerable ongoing epidemic of violence against women.  

 4. The norms and values embedded in the Millennium Declaration and 

international human rights instruments must continue to provide the 

foundation for engagement, in particular the key human rights principles of 

non-discrimination, meaningful participation and accountability.  

 5. The need to empower the poor through scaled-up efforts focused on 

citizen monitoring of Millennium Development Goal delivery, capacity- 

building and improving access to financial and legal services remains crucial.  

  Action-oriented agenda for all stakeholders 

  Creating the policy and fiscal space to accelerate and sustain progress 

100. Achieving the Millennium Development Goals will need accelerated 

interventions in key areas. These interventions should be framed within the broader 

__________________ 

 36  International Telecommunication Union, World Telecommunication/ICT Indicators Database, 

2007 and 2008. 

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development framework of national development strategies for long-term equitable 

and sustainable growth and structural change. The immediate priority would be to 

ensure the sustainability of economic recovery, rising rural productivity and decent 

work generation in a period in which economic growth is likely to be slower than 

before the current crisis.  

101. National Governments, with the full involvement of civil society organizations 

and supported by the international community must take urgent measures to 

implement growth and trade strategies enabling accelerated reduction in poverty, 

inequality and marginalization. This means promoting the fiscal space for delivery 

of key public services and long-term public investments in infrastructure, 

agriculture and human skills. It also means re-examination of prevailing 

macroeconomic frameworks, particularly to restore national capabilities to minimize 

the adverse effects of capital mobility, which has severely undermined domestic 

resource mobilization and monetary and exchange rate management. Without 

sustained employment and income growth, all measured Millennium Development 

Goal progress will prove to be short lived.  

102. Financial sector policies must be supportive of accelerating proven 

interventions in addition to seeking stability through prudential regulations. These 

policies should also promote financial inclusion and may include specialized 

financial institutions and incentives for financial institutions to cater to small and 

medium-sized enterprises, poor populations, agriculture and non-farm activities. 

Inclusive finance will involve a continuum of affordable financial services (savings, 

loans, payments, receipts and insurance) available to poor households to improve 

their standards of living, and for enterprises to grow. Trade and industry policies 

should support dynamic sectors and activities in terms of productivity growth and 

creation of decent jobs characterized by high wages and employment security. 

103. Progress must be protected in an era of increased economic insecurity arising 

from global economic instability, volatile food prices, natural disasters and health 

epidemics. This requires universal social protection and measures to support the 

most vulnerable communities. There should be effective measures to address all 

forms of discrimination and social exclusion including through legislative and 

enforcement measures, awareness campaigns and social mobilization. 

  Expanded global partnership to support the Millennium Development  

Goal agenda 

104. Working in partnership with all stakeholders, the international community 

must support national development strategies, expand national policy space, 

accelerate investment in developing countries, minimize the likelihood of crisis and 

conflict and substantially improve the international response to humanitarian, 

rehabilitation and recovery needs, and encourage and sustain reforms for a more 

conducive international environment for development. In the coming months, 

concrete steps will be taken at all levels to improve coordination and management in 

support of the Millennium Development Goals. United Nations country teams, 

central to the United Nations country efforts, will be tasked to support the overall 

and sector-specific Millennium Development Goal plans of Member States.  

105. Millennium Development Goal interventions along the lines outlined above 

will require expanded fiscal and institutional capacity at all levels in both donor and 

recipient circles, and rigorous public-private management systems to ensure that the 

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money gets to the right place, at the right time and for the right uses. For several 

Millennium Development Goals, despite knowledge of what effective interventions 

are required, there have been shortfalls in the financing and management needed for 

effective implementation.  

106. Raising resources to finance the Millennium Development Goals should start 

at home. Therefore, effective and innovative measures to raise domestic revenues in 

a sustainable manner and to efficiently allocate these resources for development are 

essential. Most importantly, the international community should intensify 

international tax cooperation, respecting the sovereign right of countries and 

enabling them to raise considerably greater domestic fiscal resources. The onus of 

responsibility falls most heavily on the OECD economies, which should not only 

support domestic financial resource mobilization in developing countries, but also 

reform international economic relations to enhance financing for development by 

ensuring developmental reforms in the areas of international investment, 

international trade, aid, debt and systemic reform as promised by the Monterrey 

Consensus and reiterated in the 2008 Doha Declaration.37  

107. The community of donors must deliver on its existing promises of greatly 

expanded ODA, while enhancing aid effectiveness and eliminating onerous 

conditionalities. If these promises are not met, the poor will suffer and, indeed, die 

in large numbers. Honouring commitments by the rich countries is a bulwark of 

global solidarity and a sine qua non for success in implementing the Millennium 

Development Goals in the low-income countries. 

108. In the past few months, several Governments have put forth promising 

proposals to ensure adequate financing for the Millennium Development Goals, 

including the call for new financing to build better health systems, the G-8 2009 

L’Aquila food security initiative and the associated call for financing a multi-donor 

trust fund, which could support millions of farm families seeking to enhance food 

productivity, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change 

mitigation and adaptation funds and others. These opportunities must be acted upon 

quickly to ensure that longstanding international commitments are kept by the time 

of the 2010 G-8 and G-20 summits in Canada. 

109. At the same time, there is a need to look beyond traditional ODA to more 

innovative financing models that can increase financial flows and their 

predictability. Several new programmes, schemes and models are promising, and 

should be urgently considered for scale-up opportunities. Private philanthropy for 

the Millennium Development Goals has also grown considerably in recent years and 

proven effective in mobilizing support from individuals and supplementing 

available financing to achieve the Goals.  

110. Developed countries must also live up to their promises by eliminating trade- 

distorting agricultural subsidies and finally giving genuinely unrestricted market 

access to developing countries to help them lift themselves out of poverty.  

111. The time has come for an accountability mechanism between developed and 

developing countries (as agreed in the Monterrey Consensus and the Accra Plan of 

Action), and between Governments and their citizens, to ensure that Millennium 

Development Goal commitments are honoured. The 2010 high-level plenary 

__________________ 

 37  General Assembly resolution 63/239, annex. 

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meeting should be an occasion for endorsement of an accountability framework that 

consolidates global commitments, links them to results with timelines, and 

establishes monitoring and enforcing mechanisms.  

  Harnessing private sector potential for sustainable development  

112. Harnessing private sector potential begins with the farmer in the rural village, 

who is the backbone of the private sector in his or her country. It extends all the way 

to the major multinational companies that often operate in more than 100 countries 

around the world. The private sector often plays the central role in economic 

development, but can play that role effectively only when the public sector is doing 

its job as well: in regulation, public investments in key infrastructure such as roads 

and power, and the provision of public services such as education and health.  

113. Many businesses are already taking specific action in support of the 

Millennium Development Goals — assisting in poverty reduction, food security, 

environmental stewardship, gender equality, health care and education through their 

core business operations, social investments and advocacy. Beyond responsible 

practices, business should think of new and creative ways of working with and 

investing in pro-poor business models, products and services that can bring about 

thriving markets.  

114. The United Nations Global Compact, in which the world’s major companies 

are committed to global social responsibility, will this year take on the Millennium 

Development Goals as a central focus of its participating companies. These 

companies will share technologies, business models, outreach strategies and skilled 

managers towards the scaling-up of Millennium Development Goal initiatives in 

many parts of the world. At its high-level meeting, the United Nations will release a 

framework for strategic business action in support of the Millennium Development 

Goals. It will also call on companies to align their social investments with 

development in general and the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals 

in particular. Many are already partners in the Millennium Villages and related 

programmes. Many more companies can and will join the global Millennium 

Development Goal effort.  

115. The Millennium Development Goals have triggered the largest cooperative 

effort in world history to fight poverty, hunger and disease. They have become a 

rallying cry in poor and rich countries alike, and a standard for non-governmental 

organizations and corporations as well. Nearly 10 years after they were adopted, 

they are alive and stronger than ever, which is a rarity among global goals. The 

world wants them to work. 

116. The shortfalls in progress towards the Millennium Development Goals are not 

because they are unreachable or because the time is too short, but rather because of 

unmet commitments, inadequate resources, lack of focus and accountability, and 

insufficient interest in sustainable development. This has resulted in failure to 

deliver on the necessary finance, services, technical support and partnerships. As a 

consequence of these shortfalls, aggravated by the global food and economic crises 

as well as the failure of various development policies and programmes, 

improvements in the lives of the poor have been unacceptably slow to achieve, 

while some hard won gains are being eroded. 

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117. The Millennium Development Goals represent a pact, not just among 

Governments, but also among all development stakeholders. Each actor must focus 

on the best use of its assets, acting efficiently, effectively and collectively to fulfil a 

specific role, as follows:  

 (a) Developing countries: establish policies and institutions to achieve the 

Goals, involving administrations, communities and citizens towards this end. 

Through South-South cooperation, they also need to pledge to help other developing 

countries through the transfer of knowledge, technology and resources;  

 (b) Civil society actors, including those ensuring Government accountability 

and those delivering services: commit to the Millennium Development Goal agenda;  

 (c) Private businesses: disseminate technologies, create decent employment 

and otherwise work to support the goals;  

 (d) Private philanthropy: provide a catalytic role in fostering new 

innovations for later adoption by the public sector and through public-private 

partnerships; 

 (e) Developed countries: fulfil existing commitments to increase the quantity 

and improve the effectiveness of development assistance and improve market access 

for developing countries’ exports;  

 (f) The multilateral system, including the United Nations agencies, funds 

and programmes: improve its coherence and effectiveness in support of the 

Millennium Development Goals. 

118. Ten years have passed since the adoption of the Millennium Declaration and 

the historical commitment to cut extreme poverty by half through the 

implementation of eight measurable and time-bound goals: the Millennium 

Development Goals. This vision and those measures remain relevant today. Our 

world possesses the knowledge and the resources to achieve the Millennium 

Development Goals and embrace a sustainable development process for a brighter, 

more secure and more prosperous future for all. Coming together in September with 

a renewed commitment to build on our achievements so far and to bridge the gaps 

identified, we can deliver on our shared responsibility to build a better world for 

generations to come.  

119. The United Nations has affirmed the right to development in addition to the 

other economic, social and cultural rights stated in the Universal Declaration of 

Human Rights. The rights approach affirms human rights to social protection and 

rejection of social exclusion, thus contributing to overall security and well-being. 

Fulfilling the rights of each and every citizen requires adequate resources. The 

Millennium Development Goal framework has identified stakeholders and duty- 

bearers with well-defined responsibilities, establishing accountability for 

development outcomes.  

120. In recent decades, Government resources for development have often become 

increasingly constrained, while the private sector has taken over many areas of 

service and utility provision. New and innovative instruments are being promoted to 

finance development needs, including through multi-donor trust funds such as the 

L’Aquila food security initiative. However, the promise of delivering adequate aid 

remains unfulfilled, while the urgency to ensure that the international financial and 

trading systems support development has heightened in the wake of the current 

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global crisis; hence, ensuring the adequacy of resources is the major challenge in 

achieving development, including the Millennium Development Goals.  

121. We must not fail the billions who look to the international community to fulfil 

the promise of the Millennium Declaration for a better world. Let us meet in 

September to keep the promise. 

  

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Annex  

   

  Suggested themes for the round tables 

  Poverty, hunger and gender equality 

1. How can we better support and facilitate employment-intensive, sustained and 

equitable growth and structural change? 

2. How can we support holistic community-led approaches to achieve the 

synergies of the Millennium Development Goals? 

3. How can international commitments support national efforts to raise 

agricultural output in order to overcome hunger and ensure food security? 

4. How can we ensure that new and existing commitments, by all stakeholders, 

 are adequately monitored and met? 

5. What institutional reforms and commitments are required to overcome gender 

inequality and the main obstacles to women’s empowerment? 

6. How can Governments be supported to expand social protection systems where 

they indicate this is a priority? 

  Health and education  

1. How do we enhance access to public health care? 

2. What cost-effective key interventions in health are needed, especially to 

improve maternal health? How can national policies and international 

partnerships overcome the current institutional and resource constraints? 

3. What are the best strategies to overcome institutional and resource deficiencies 

in achieving education for all? 

4. How can we ensure that new and existing commitments, by all stakeholders, 

are adequately monitored and met? 

  Promoting sustainable development  

1. What are the most cost-effective national policies to increase the availability 

of safe drinking water on a sustainable basis and to improve sanitation? 

2. What international partnerships and resources are needed to support national 

efforts?  

3. What are the most cost-effective ways of improving the welfare of slum- 

dwellers and of ensuring their access to basic services on a sustainable basis? 

4. What institutions and reforms will protect biodiversity and forest cover? 

5. How can we ensure that new and existing commitments, by all stakeholders, 

are adequately monitored and met? 

  Widening and strengthening partnerships  

1. How do we ensure that aid commitments are met and what else can be done to 

improve aid predictability? 

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2. How do we ensure debt sustainability through enhanced international 

cooperation? What are the best ways to facilitate debt relief and debt 

workouts? 

3. How do we ensure that the Doha Round of World Trade Organization trade 

negotiations realizes its development promise? 

4. How do we ensure easier and cheaper access to medicines and new agricultural 

and renewable energy technology? 

5. How can stakeholders work more effectively together to prevent conflict and 

armed violence and to strengthen the rule of law, justice and security? 

6. How can we ensure that new and existing commitments, by all stakeholders, 

are adequately monitored and met? 

  Addressing the special needs of the most vulnerable  

1. What more should be done to address the special needs of the poorest 

countries? 

2. What should be done to better identify and address the special needs of the 

most vulnerable countries, communities and people? 

3. What can be done to break the cycle of poverty, political and economic 

exclusion and civil violence? 

4. What is the developmental potential of humanitarian, disaster relief and 

peacebuilding efforts? 

5. How can we ensure that new and existing commitments, by all stakeholders, 

are adequately monitored and met? 

  Addressing emerging issues and evolving approaches 

1. What are the most effective measures to enhance food security? 

2. How should climate change mitigation and adaptation be incorporated into 

broader efforts to enhance sustainable development? 

3. How can financing be ensured for global public goods, including meeting 

existing commitments on financing for development and new challenges such 

as climate change? 

4. How should the international community address new emerging issues that are 

intimately linked with the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals, 

such as security, armed violence, migration and others? 

5. How should the international financial system be reformed to better support 

sustainable and equitable development? 

6. How should the international community reform international economic 

governance to better support sustainable and equitable development? 

7. How can we ensure that new and existing commitments, by all stakeholders, 

are adequately monitored and met?