MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are eight international development goals that 192 United Nations member states and at least 23 international organizations have agreed to achieve by the year 2015.In 2001, recognizing the need to assist impoverished nations more aggressively, UN member states adopted the targets. The MDGs aim to spur development by improving social and economic conditions in the world's poorest countries. They derive from earlier international development targets, and were officially established at the Millennium Summit in 2000, where all world leaders present adopted the United Nations Millennium Declaration, from which the eight goals were promoted.
The goals are as follows

1. Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
2. Achieve universal primary education
3. Promote gender equality and empower women
4. Reduce child mortality
5. Improve maternal health
6. Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases
7. Ensure environmental sustainability
8. Develop a global partnership for development

Progress towards reaching the goals has been uneven. Some countries have achieved many of the goals, while others are not on track to realize any.The major countries that have been achieving their goals include China (whose poverty population has reduced from 452 million to 278 million) and India due to clear internal and external factors of population and economic development. However,areas needing the most reduction, such as the Sub-Saharan Africa regions have yet to make any drastic changes in improving their quality of life. In the same time as China, the Sub-Saharan Africa reduced their poverty about one percent, and are at a major risk of not meeting the MDGs by 2015. Fundamental issues will determine whether or not the MDGs are achieved, namely gender, the divide between the humanitarian and development agendas and economic growth, according to the Overseas Development Institute.
Backed by G-8 funding, the World Bank, the IMF, and the ADB, each endorsed the Gleaneagles plan in 2005 G-8 Summit and implemented the Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative ("MDRI") to effectuate the debt cancellations. The MDRI supplements HIPC (Heavily Indebted Poor Countries)by providing each country that reaches the HIPC completion point 100% forgiveness of its multilateral debt. Countries that previously reached the decision point became eligible for full debt forgiveness once their lending agency confirmed that the countries had continued to maintain the reforms implemented during HIPC status. Other countries that subsequently reach the completion point automatically receive full forgiveness of their multilateral debt under MDRI.
COURTESY:WIKIPEDIA