MDG Conference 2003 Briefing

Document begins: MDG Conference 2003 Briefing Summary: Hitting the poverty reduction targets or missing the point? Will the Millennium Development Goals break the vicious global cycle of protectionism, subsidies to rich-world farmers, declining aid and disempowerment? The International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) in London is bringing together 100 leading activists and development professionals from more than 33 countries to the launch of a challenging new report. `Hitting the Target' probes whether the global community's approach to reducing poverty through the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) is likely to succeed and what needs to change to ensure it does. The Millennium Development Goals have committed governments and international agencies to time-bound goals that include (between 1990 and 2015): · Achieving universal primary education · Reducing infant and child mortality by two-thirds and maternal mortality by three-quarters · Halving the number of people with unsafe drinking water and inadequate incomes and food intakes · Significantly improving the lives of at least 100 million `slum' dwellers (by 2020) · Halting and beginning to reverse the spread of Aids, malaria and other major diseases. They also demand more gender equality and more work opportunities for youth. So governments and international agencies have set themselves ...