In 2000, the UN summit agreed the Millennium Declaration – aspirations for the new century. The following year, the narrower, measurable Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) set out what the grand ambitions meant in practice, with 2015 as a target date for achieving them.
The MDGs have encouraged increased aid for development (though its continued growth is put in doubt by the tough economic environment), and have helped focus international effort on to important goals in health and education. But the record is mixed, partly because the MDGs are not equally applicable in all countries with widely differing circumstances. Conflict-affected countries have needs the MDGs do not address. And success in reducing global poverty is not due to the MDGs but to China’s spectacular economic growth.
