The Millennium Development Goals aim to halve poverty by 2015. Eight specific and measurable goals set targets in specific areas. At ‘Halftime’, data is giving an indication of progress during the first third of this 15-year period. The latest UN progress report states that across all the regions no one goal is on track. However, there is progress being made on all the goals. The results are predictably uneven but there has been some visible and widespread gains. Encouragingly, the report suggests that some progress is being made even in those regions where the challenges are greatest demonstrating success is possible, but also indicating the MDGs will be attained only if concerted additional action is taken immediately and sustained until 2015.

• The proportion of people living in extreme poverty fell
from nearly a third to less than one fifth between 1990 and
2004. If the trend is sustained, the MDG poverty reduction
target will be met for the world as a whole and for most
regions.
• The number of extremely poor people in sub-Saharan
Africa has levelled off, and the poverty rate has declined by
nearly six percentage points since 2000. Nevertheless, the
region is not on track to reach the Goal of reducing poverty
by half by 2015.
• Progress has been made in getting more children into
school in the developing world. Enrolment in primary
education grew from 80 per cent in 1991 to 88 per cent in
2005. Most of this progress has taken place since 1999.
• Women’s political participation has been growing, albeit
slowly. Even in countries where previously only men were
allowed to stand for political election, women now have a
seat in parliament.
• Child mortality has declined globally, and it is becoming
clear that the right life-saving interventions are proving
effective in reducing the number of deaths due to the main
child killers – such as measles.
• Key interventions to control malaria have been expanded.
• The tuberculosis epidemic, finally, appears on the verge
of decline, although progress is not fast enough to halve
prevalence and death rates by 2015.
By pointing to what has been achieved, these results also
highlight how much remains to be done and how much more
could be accomplished if all concerned live up fully to the
commitments they have already made. Currently, only one
of the eight regional groups cited in this report is on track to
achieve all the Millennium Development Goals. In contrast,
the projected shortfalls are most severe in sub-Saharan
Africa. Even regions that have made substantial progress,
including parts of Asia, face challenges in areas such as
health and environmental sustainability. More generally,
the lack of employment opportunities for young people,
gender inequalities, rapid and unplanned urbanization,
deforestation, increasing water scarcity, and high HIV
prevalence are pervasive obstacles.
Moreover, insecurity and instability in conflict and postconflict
countries make long-term development efforts
extremely difficult. In turn, a failure to achieve the MDGs
can further heighten the risk of instability and conflict. Yet in
spite of a technical consensus that development and security
are mutually dependent, international efforts all too often
treat them as independent from one another.
The following are some of the key challenges that have to be
addressed:
• Over half a million women still die each year from treatable
and preventable complications of pregnancy and childbirth.
The odds that a woman will die from these causes in sub-
Saharan Africa are 1 in 16 over the course of her lifetime,
compared to 1 in 3,800 in the developed world.
• If current trends continue, the target of halving the
proportion of underweight children will be missed by
30 million children, largely because of slow progress in
Southern Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.
• The number of people dying from AIDS worldwide
increased to 2.9 million in 2006, and prevention measures
are failing to keep pace with the growth of the epidemic. In
2005, more than 15 million children had lost one or both
parents to AIDS.
• Half the population of the developing world lack basic
sanitation. In order to meet the MDG target, an additional
1.6 billion people will need access to improved sanitation
over the period 2005-2015. If trends since 1990 continue,
the world is likely to miss the target by almost 600 million
people.
• To some extent, these situations reflect the fact that the
benefits of economic growth in the developing world have
been unequally shared. Widening income inequality is
of particular concern in Eastern Asia, where the share of
consumption of the poorest people declined dramatically
between 1990 and 2004.
• Most economies have failed to provide employment
opportunities to their youth, with young people more than
three times as likely as adults to be unemployed.
• Warming of the climate is now unequivocal. Emissions of
carbon dioxide, the primary contributor to global climate
change, rose from 23 billion metric tons in 1990 to 29
billion metric tons in 2004. Climate change is projected
to have serious economic and social impacts, which will
impede progress towards the MDGs.
This report also points to disparities within countries,
where particular groups of the population – often those
living in rural areas, children of mothers with no formal
education and the poorest households – are not making
enough progress to meet the targets, even where the rest of
the population is. This is particularly evident in access to
health services and education. In order to achieve the MDGs,
countries will need to mobilize additional resources and
target public investments that benefit the poor.

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