Hitting the Target or Missing the Point? Key Messages from an International Conference on the MDGs

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are an ambitious agenda for reducing poverty and improving lives that world leaders agreed at the UN Millennium Summit in September 2000. For each goal one or more targets have been set, most for 2015, using 1990 as a benchmark. Most governments and international agencies have publicly committed themselves to these goals; and many are making changes in their institutional structures that they hope will increase their effectiveness in meeting these goals.