MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS LESSONS LEARNT AND THE WAY FORWARD

Abstract

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) agenda crafted in 2001 targeting prominent challenges the worldfacing. These are eight international development goals to be achieved by 2015 addressing poverty, hunger,maternal and child mortality, communicable disease, education, gender inequality, environmental damage and theglobal partnership. This framework has laid ground by setting quantitative and time-bound targets despite variabilityamong countries capability and starting baselines.Though irregular, the MDGs announcement have raised governments’ commitment and public awareness thathelped mobilize action in support of poverty eradication efforts across the world. However, since the ongoinginterventions are variable and slow, some of the targets may remain unreachable. Most efforts worldwide havefocused on maternal and child health and communicable diseases with limited attention to other targets. As a result,as the deadline for the MDGs comes closer, some countries are on track of achieving some of the targets, but, someof the world's low income countries are being left behind in efforts to meet the targets.