Update on the Millennium Development Goals

The following is the foreword written by Secretary General Kofi A. Annan in the 2005 Millennium Development Goals Report. I highlight them here even though this was written three years ago; I do so with the desire of reminding myself, and you, of the desperate need for all of us to think of whatever ways we can possibly help achieve these goals. We will not enjoy security in our American homes (whether in the midwest or on the West coast or in the humid regions of the south) if we do not have development, and we cannot achieve and sustain development if we do not respect human rights -- for everyone. What have you done to reach the development goals?

NOTE: The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are the world’s time-bound
and quantified targets for addressing extreme poverty in its many dimensions—
income poverty, hunger, disease, lack of adequate shelter, and exclusion—
while promoting gender equality, education, and environmental sustainability.
They are also basic human rights—the rights of each person on the
planet to health, education, shelter, and security as pledged in the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights and the UN Millennium Declaration.

How will the world look in 2015 if the Goals are achieved? More than
500 million people will be lifted out of extreme poverty. More than 300 million
will no longer suffer from hunger. There will also be dramatic progress in
child health. Rather than die before reaching their fifth birthdays, 30 million
children will be saved. So will the lives of more than 2 million mothers.

There’s more. Achieving the Goals will mean 350 million fewer people
are without safe drinking water and 650 million fewer people live without
the benefits of basic sanitation, allowing them to lead healthier and more
dignified lives. Hundreds of millions more women and girls will go to school,
access economic and political opportunity, and have greater security and
safety.

THE ADOPTION OF THE Millennium Development
Goals, drawn from the United Nations Millennium
Declaration, was a seminal event in the history of the
United Nations. It constituted an unprecedented
promise by world leaders to address, as a single package,
peace, security, development, human rights and
fundamental freedoms.

As I said in my March 2005 report entitled
“In larger freedom: towards development,
security and human rights for all”, to which
the present report is a complement:

“We will not enjoy development without security, we will not enjoy security without development, and we will not enjoy either without respect for human rights. Unless all these causes are advanced, none will succeed.”

The eight Millennium Development Goals range
from halving extreme poverty to halting the spread
of HIV/AIDS and providing universal primary education
— all by the target date of 2015. They form a
blueprint agreed by all the world’s countries and all the
world’s leading development institutions — a set of
simple but powerful objectives that every man and
woman in the street, from New York to Nairobi to New
Delhi, can easily support and understand. Since their
adoption, the Goals have galvanized unprecedented
efforts to meet the needs of the world’s poorest.

Why are the Millennium Development Goals so
different? There are four reasons.

First, the Millennium Development Goals are
people-centred, time-bound and measurable.
Second, they are based on a global partnership,
stressing the responsibilities of developing countries
for getting their own house in order, and of developed
countries for supporting those efforts.
Third, they have unprecedented political support,
embraced at the highest levels by developed and
developing countries, civil society and major development
institutions alike. Fourth, they are achievable.

The year 2005 is crucial in our work to achieve
the Goals. In September — 5 years after they adopted
the Millennium Declaration and 10 years before the
Goals fall due — world leaders will meet at the
United Nations in New York to assess how far their
pledges have been fulfilled, and to decide on what
further steps are needed. In many ways, the task this
year will be much tougher than it was in 2000.
Instead of setting targets, this time leaders must
decide how to achieve them.

THIS PROGRESS REPORT is the most comprehensive
accounting to date on how far we have come,
and how far we have to go, in each of the world’s
regions. It reflects a collaborative effort among a large
number of agencies and organizations within and
outside the United Nations system. All have provided
the most up-to-date data possible in their areas of
responsibility, helping thereby to achieve clarity and
consistency in the report.

Above all, the report shows us how much progress
has been made in some areas, and how large an effort
is needed to meet the Millennium Development Goals
in others. If current trends persist, there is a risk that
many of the poorest countries will not be able to
meet many of them. Considering how far we have
come, such a failure would mark a tragically missed
opportunity. This report shows that we have the
means at hand to ensure that nearly every country
can make good on the promises of the Goals. Our
challenge is to deploy those means.

As I said in my March report: “Let us be clear
about the costs of missing this opportunity: millions
of lives that could have been saved will be lost; many
freedoms that could have been secured will be
denied; and we shall inhabit a more dangerous
and unstable world.”

I commend this report as a key resource in preparing
for the September summit, which must be a time
of decision. The analysis and information contained
here can help citizens, civic organizations,
Governments, parliaments and international bodies
to play their respective roles in making the
Millennium Development Goals a reality.