Gist of Millennium Development Goals - 2015

The Millennium Development Goals MDG Report 2015 found that the 15-year effort to achieve the eight aspirational goals set out in the Millennium Declaration in 2000 was largely successful across the globe, while acknowledging shortfalls that remain. The data and analysis presented in the report show that with targeted interventions, sound strategies, adequate resources and political will, even the poorest can make progress.

The final MDG report confirms that goal-setting can lift millions of people out of poverty, empower women and girls, improve health and well-being, and provide vast new opportunities for better lives.

Key points

• The number of people now living in extreme poverty has declined by more than half, falling from 1.9 billion in 1990 to 836 million in 2015.
• The number of people in the working middle class—living on more than $4 a day—nearly tripled between 1991 and 2015.
• The proportion of undernourished people in the developing regions dropped by almost half since 1990.
• The number of out-of-school children of primary school age worldwide fell by almost half, to an estimated 57 million in 2015, down from 100 million in 2000.
• Gender parity in primary school has been achieved in the majority of countries.
• The mortality rate of children under-five was cut by more than half since 1990.
• Since 1990, maternal mortality fell by 45 percent worldwide.
• Over 6.2 million malaria deaths have been averted between 2000 and 2015.
• New HIV infections fell by approximately 40 percent between 2000 and 2013.
• By June 2014, 13.6 million people living with HIV were receiving antiretroviral therapy (ART) globally, an immense increase from just 800,000 in 2003.
• Between 2000 and 2013, tuberculosis prevention, diagnosis and treatment interventions saved an estimated 37 million lives.
• Worldwide 2.1 billion people have gained access to improved sanitation.
• Globally, 147 countries have met the MDG drinking water target, 95 countries have met the MDG sanitation target and 77 countries have met both.
• Official development assistance from developed countries increased 66 percent in real terms from 2000 and 2014, reaching $135.2 billion.

MDG & India

• India has halved its incidence of extreme poverty, from 49.4 per cent in 1994 to 24.7 per cent in 2011, ahead of the 2015 deadline set by the U.N,, shows the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) Report, 2015.

• The report set the limit for extreme poverty as those living on $1.25 or less a day.

• The reduction in poverty is still less than that achieved by several of India’s poorer neighbours. Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh have each outstripped India in poverty reduction.

• While the report says India is on track to achieving the hunger targets, the nation remains home to one-quarter of the world’s undernourished population, over a third of the world’s underweight children, and nearly a third of the world’s food-insecure people.

• The report is especially important because it marks the deadline by which the MDG should have been achieved.

• India has achieved 11 out of 22 parameters in the report — spanning education, poverty, health, education and so on — and is on track to achieve one more by 2015-end.

• Though India has halved its incidence of extreme poverty, the nation is categorised as making “slow” progress on the other 10 parameters, including maternal mortality and access to sanitation, says the MDG Report.