Overview
UN Millennium Development Goals

Global Emergency

Positive Foundations at Brandeis University is committed to eradicating extreme poverty, defined as living on less than $1 a day. Currently, the most basic needs of more than 1.2 billion people, or 1 out of every six people worldwide, are not met. Extreme poverty kills; more than 24,000 voiceless individuals perish from extreme poverty.

Fast facts:

• Every year six million children die from malnutrition before their fifth birthday
• More than 800 million people go to bed hungry every day...300 million are children.
• Everyday HIV/AIDS kills 6,000 people and another 8,200 people are infected with this deadly virus.
• More than 40 percent of women in Africa do not have access to basic education.
• A total of 114 million children do not get even a basic education and 584 million women are illiterate.

For more information on extreme poverty, please visit http://unmillenniumproject.org/press/press2.htm

Millennium Development Goals: Framework for Sustainable Development

To address extreme poverty, 189 countries met in September 2000 and committed to achieving the eight United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015:

1. Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger (halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people whose income is less than $1 a day; halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people who suffer from hunger)
2. Achieve universal primary ducation
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

The achievement of the MDGs is organized by the United Nations Millennium Project, directed by world-renowned international economist Professor Jeffrey D. Sachs, Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, Special Advisor to the Secretary-General of the United Nations, and author of The End of Poverty. Through increasing measurable and accountable aid, the free and fair liberalization of trade, and debt cancellation, affordable financial investments can be provided to achieve the MDGs.

With collaboration between international and local governments, NGOs, and universities these eight inter-disciplinary goals can be achieved by 2015.

For more details on the goals and the specific indicators and measures being utilized to achieve the MDGs, please visit http://unmillenniumproject.org/goals/index.htm

Additionally, the ONE Campaign [ http://www.one.org ] is a national organization in the United States working to lobby elected officials to raise the foreign aid and ODA (Official Development Assistance) necessary to end extreme poverty.