United Nations Millennium Development Goals

Can the UN meet its ambitious goals to end poverty? 

By: Shane P. McQuade, MS, MBA, Hopkins Biotech Network

What are they?

The Millennium goals are an ambitious set of eight international goals established by 189 United Nations member states in 2001 to address and eradicate world poverty and hunger. In 2000, the UN recognized the need for a single internationally applicable mandate to aggressively address global public health challenges in impoverished countries in a timely manner. At the 2000 Millennium summit, eight broad public health goals were agreed on:

1. 1)   Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
2. 2)   Achieve universal primary education
3. 3)   Promote gender equality
4. 4)   Reduce child mortality
5. 5)   Improve maternal health
6. 6)   Combat AIDS/HIV, malaria and other diseases
7. 7)   Ensure environmental sustainability
8. 8)   Develop a global partnership for development 

The Players

Each of these eight goals have specific milestones that the UN plans to meet by 2015. These ambitious goals are achievable and there has been progress since the creation of the UN's eight Millennium Development Goals (MDG's). However, the Millennium Development goals are not currently on track to be achieved by 2015. Universal access to HIV/AIDS treatment, for example, is currently being addressed by several Public-Private Partnership's such as the International Aids Vaccine Initiative (IAVI) and Partners in Health (PIH). However, universal access by 2010, as mandated in MDG #6, did not occur. A transnational fund that works closely with the UN’s Millennium goals is the Global fund. The role of the Global Fund is to attract, monitor and distribute medical resources to fight HIV/AIDS, Malaria and TB. It is more of an overseer of operations, relying heavily on local expertise. The global fund is involved in streamlining grant writing, financial leveraging and evaluating distribution proposals. It’s AIDS funded program alone has already provided medical care to almost 3 million orphans. Additionally, its TB funded program tested and treated 3.9 million TB infected patients.

Recent Success

The Presidents Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (PEPFAR) created by the George W. Bush Administration in 2003 has had a positive impact on the UN’s Millennium Goals. It pledged to contribute $15 billion dollars over five years between 2003 and 2008. Overall, the program has had a positive impact in helping the Millennium project reach its AIDS treatment goals in impoverished regions. PEPFAR has what is known as the “2-7-10 by 2010” goal. This stands for antiretroviral treatment to 2 million already infected AIDS patients, to prevent 7 million new infections and to support care for 10 million people by 2010. Several public health experts have called PEPFAR the largest single health initiative initiated by a single country ever. As of this year, the program has already prevented 194,000 infant infections, provided anti-retroviral treatment (ART) treatment to 1.7 million infected patients and provided support care for approximately 6.6 million patients.

How to learn more

For more information please visit: http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/

Shane P. McQuade, MS, MBA

Contributing Editor

HopkinsBiotech Network