What are the Millennium Development Goals?

These are a set of eight international development goals to be met by 2015 which grew out of the United Nations Millennium Declaration signed in September 2000. All 192 UN member countries and over 23 international organisations agreed to meet these ambitious goals, which were: eradicating extreme poverty and hunger (halving the number of people that live on less than a dollar a day); ensuring all children receive primary education; eliminating gender disparity at all educational levels; reducing by two-thirds the mortality rate of children under five; improving maternal health; halting and reversing the spread of AIDS, malaria and other diseases (and ensuring universal access to AIDS treatment by 2010); ensuring environmental sustainability and establishing a global partnership for development. Progress towards meeting these goals has been steady in Asia and South America, but sub-Saharan Africa is falling well short and some of its countries are unlikely to meet any of them. Despite a falling number of armed conflicts, Africa is still rife with disease, poverty and weak governance and remains the biggest focus and challenge for development programmes today.