Millennium Development Goals

Australia is one of 189 countries that adopted the Millennium Declaration and committed to the Millennium Development Goals in 2000. The eight Millennium Development Goals are a shared world vision for reducing poverty. The central goal is to reduce by half the proportion of people living on less than US$1.25 a day by 2015 relative to 1990. It is the collective responsibility of all United Nations member countries, developed and developing countries alike, to meet the goals and targets set out in the declaration by 2015.

The Millennium Development Goals are at the center of Australia’s aid program. The Australian aid program doubled in size to $4.3 billion in the five years to 2010-11 and, on current economic projections, will double again to meet the Government’s commitment to increase the aid program to 0.5 per cent of Gross National Income (GNI) by 2015-16. This commitment will make an important contribution to efforts to speed up progress towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals.

Australia is a top ten contributor to WFP, WHO, UNICEF, UNHCR and CERF.

Australian’s are the second highest private donors to non-government organisations in the world.

More information on how Australia is helping to achieve the Millennium Development Goals.

The Millennium Development Goals

Goal 1

Eradicate extreme hunger and poverty

  • Halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people whose income is less than $1 a day
  • Achieve full and productive employment and decent work for all, including women and young people
  • Halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people who suffer from hunger
Goal 2

Achieve universal primary education

  • Ensure that, by 2015, children everywhere, boys and girls alike, will be able to complete a full course of primary schooling
Goal 3

Promote gender equality and empower women

  • Eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education, preferably by 2005, and in all levels of education no later than 2015
Goal 4

Reduce child mortality

  • Reduce by two-thirds, between 1990 and 2015, the under-five mortality rate
Goal 5

Improve maternal health

  • Reduce by three-quarters, between 1990 and 2015, the maternal mortality ratio
  • Achieve universal access to reproductive health
Goal 6

Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases

  • Have halted by 2015 and begun to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS
  • Achieve, by 2010, universal access to treatment for HIV/AIDS for all those who need it
  • Have halted by 2015 and begun to reverse the incidence of malaria and other major diseases
Goal 7

Ensure environmental sustainability

  • Integrate the principles of sustainable development into country policies and programs and reverse the loss of environmental resources
  • Reduce biodiversity loss, achieving, by 2010, a significant reduction in the rate of loss
  • Halve, by 2015, the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation
  • Have achieved by 2020 a significant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers
Goal 8

Develop a global partnership for development

  • Address the special needs of least developed countries, landlocked countries and small island developing states
  • Develop further an open, rule-based, predictable, non-discriminatory trading and financial system
  • Deal comprehensively with developing countries’ debt
  • In cooperation with pharmaceutical companies, provide access to affordable essential drugs in developing countries
  • In cooperation with the private sector, make available benefits of new technologies, especially information and communications