The Millennium Development Goals in the Asia-Pacific: An Introduction

At the United Nations (UN) Millennium Summit in September 2000, 191 UN member states committed themselves to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). These goals emanated from a number of international conferences during the 1990s, which themselves drew on pre-existing goals and targets dating back to aspi­rations espoused by the international community before World War II. The MDGs are a set of eight internationally agreed goals to improve the well-being of the poor in developing countries. They are designed to address many of the multidimensional aspects of poverty and include: (1) eradicating extreme income poverty and hunger; (2) achieving universal primary education; (3) promoting gender equality; (4) reducing child mortality; (5) improving maternal health; (6) com­bating HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases; (7) ensuring environmen­tal sustainability; and (8) developing a global partnership for development. In addition to the eight goals, there are 18 targets and 48 indicators which are listed in the appendix to this chapter. Using 1990 as a baseline, both developed and developing countries have pledged to meet the MDGs by 2015. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.