Included in the United Nations Millenium Declaration, adopted in 2000 by all the world’s countries, the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) define time-bound objectives to fight extreme poverty and illness.

The UN Millenium Development Goals on the UN’s website

Goal 1. Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger

Target 1 : Halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion ofpeople whose income is less than one dollar a day;

Target 2 : Halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people who suffer from hunger.

Goal 2. Achieve universal primary education

Target 3 : Ensure that, by 2015, children everywhere, boys and girls alike, will be able to complete a full course of primary schooling

Goal 3. Promote gender equality and empower women

Target 4 : Eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education preferably by 2005, and at all levels by 2015

Goal 4. Reduce child mortality

Target 5 : Reduce by two-thirds, between 1990 and 2015, the under-five mortality rate.

Goal 5 : Improve maternal health

Target 6 : Reduce by three quarters, between 1990 and 2015, the maternal mortality ratio

Goal 6 : Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases

Target 7 : Have halted by 2015 and begun to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS;

Target 8 : Have halted by 2015 and begun to reverse the incidence of malaria and other major diseases

Goal 7 : Ensure environmental sustainability

Target 9 : Integrate the principles of sustainable development into country policies and programmes

Target 10 : Halve, by 2015, the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation

Target 11 : By 2020, to have achieved a significant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum-dwellers

Goal 8 : Develop a global partnership for development

Target 12 : Develop further an open trading and financial system that is rule-based, predictable and non-discriminatory (including good governance and fight against poverty)

Target 13 : Address the special needs of the least developed countries. (debt relief, cancellation of official debt, more generous ODA),

Target 14 : Address the special needs of landlocked and small island developing States.

Target 15 : Deal comprehensively with the debt problems of developing countries through national and international measures in order to make debt sustainable in the long term.

Target 16 : créer des emplois productifs pour les jeunes,

Target 17 : In cooperation with pharmaceutical companies, provide access to affordable essential drugs in developing countries;

Target 18 : In cooperation with the private sector, make available the benefits of new technologies, especially information and communications.