Poverty reduction

Primary education

Gender equality

Infant & child mortality

Maternal mortality

Reproductive health

Environment

Message from the President

Letter of Transmittal

Poverty reduction

Reduce the proportion of people living in extreme poverty by half between 1990 and 2015

Incidence of income poverty down 20 percent, but uneven progress

The global decline has been driven by progress in China and India. With higher growth in developing countries, the goal can be achieved globally, but at current rates of progress many countries will fall short.

Universal primary education

Enroll all children in primary school by 2015

Enrollment rates rising slowly

Primary school enrollments remain far off track, especially in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. Even countries that have succeeded in bringing more children to school need to worry about the quality of education.

Gender equality

Eliminate gender disparities in primary and secondary education by 2005

Progress in some regions, but little time left

Eliminating gender disparities in primary and secondary education is one step toward gender equality and the empowerment of women. Very little time is left before 2005, the target year.

Infant and child mortality

Reduce infant and child mortality rates by two-thirds between 1990 and 2015

Slow progress on average

Many countries have significantly cut these rates in the last 10 years, but on current trends no region will achieve these goals.

Maternal mortality

Reduce maternal mortality ratios by three-quarters between 1990 and 2015

Improved health care needed

While data are not sufficient to measure maternal mortality trends, global estimates suggest that over 500,000 women died from causes related to childbirth in 1995. If skilled health personnel attended 90 percent of all births, those numbers could be dramatically reduced.

Reproductive health

Provide access for all who need reproductive health services by 2015

Rising contraceptive use in most countries

But there are large regional differences. In Sub-Saharan Africa, only 26 percent of married women practice contraception. In East Asia, over 75 percent do.

Environmentally sustainable development

Halve, by 2015, the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water

Access to water improving

Achieving the 2015 target in Africa, Asia, and Latin America will require providing an additional 1.5 billion people with access to an improved water source.

The international development goals set targets for reduction in poverty, improvements in health and education, and protection of the environment. First agreed on at major United Nations (U.N.) conferences in the 1990s, the goals have been adopted by the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the members of the Development Assistance Committee of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, and many other agencies, as a framework for motivating (and measuring) development progress. Marking an extraordinary consensus reflected in the U.N. Millennium Declaration, an expanded set of goals was endorsed by 149 heads of state and adopted by the U.N. General Assembly in September 2000.

The ambitious targets for 2015 provide a formidable challenge to the international community. One-fifth of all people live on less than $1 a day. About 10 million children under the age of five died in 1999, most from preventable diseases. Over 500,000 women die each year during pregnancy or childbirth. And about 113 million children do not attend primary school. Achieving the goals means lifting more than 300 million out of poverty, preventing more than 55 million infant and child deaths and over 4 million maternal deaths, and providing places for at least 128 million more primary school students by 2015. After 10 years, there are signs of progress, but many of the goals are not likely to be achieved without renewed--and bold--effort.

More information on the international development goals, including regional and country-level data, is available on a new Web site maintained by the World Bank and its development partners: www.developmentgoals.org. The World Development Indicators, published annually by the World Bank, includes a report on progress toward the goals, and many supporting indicators.