Millenium development goals

The G8 countries adopted the millennium development goals amid great fanfare in 2000 in order to halve world poverty, improve health and education and regenerate the environment in the world's poorest countries. Most have 2015 as their target.

The millennium development goals and their associated targets represent promises made by world governments to themselves and to their peoples. They are based on numerous agreements signed up to at UN conferences over the 1990s, and have long since been adopted by all major donor countries and agencies - including the World Bank - and by many development country governments as the backbone for their anti-poverty efforts.

Universal primary education
Although there have been some improvements in primary school enrolment, especially for girls, if present trends continue, 75m children will still be out of school in 2015. There are still severe problems with drop-outs and, even among children who stay in school, there is a poor level of achievement.

Eliminating the gender gap
Although gaps between girls' and boys' enrolment have narrowed, at current rates, girls won't catch up with boys for another 20 years.

The second and fifth goals have been taken up as Millennium Development Goals and therefore attract particular attention globally. Whilst active in pursuing these two goals ActionAid believes that success depends on pursuing the full Education For All agenda

photo : ©Stuart Freedman/ Network/ ActionAid