MDG’S
“The Millennium Development Goals can be achieved if immediate steps are taken to implement existing commitments. Reaching our goals for development around the world is not only vital to building better, healthier and decent lives for millions of people, it is also essential to building enduring global peace and security.
Ours is the generation that can achieve the
development goals and free our fellow men,
women and children from the abject and
dehumanizing conditions of extreme poverty.”
MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS
> ERADICATING EXTREME POVERTY AND HUNGER
> ACHIEVING UNIVERSAL PRIMARY EDUCATION
> PROMOTING GENDER EQUALITY AND EMPOWERING WOMEN
> REDUCING CHILD MORTALITY
> IMPROVING MATERNAL HEALTH
> COMBATING HIV AIDS / MALARIA AND OTHER DISEASES
> ENSURE ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY
> DEVELOP A GLOBAL PARTNERSHIPS FOR DEVELOPMENT.
A note to the reader
Measuring progress towards the MDGs
In the United Nations Millennium Declaration of September 2000, leaders from 189 nations embraced a vision for a world in which developed and developing countries would work in partnership for the betterment of all, particularly the most disadvantaged. To provide a framework by which progress could be measured, this vision was transformed into eight Millennium Development Goals, 18 targets and 48 indicators. In 2007, this monitoring framework was revised to include four new targets agreed to by member states at the 2005 World Summit.
1; additional indicators to track progress towards the new targets were also identified
2. This report presents an assessment of progress, based on data available as of June 2008on all official MDG indicators, including the new ones introduced.
The aggregate figures in the report provide an overall assessment of regional progress under the eight goals and are a convenient way to track advances over time. However, the situation in individual countries within a given region may vary significantly from the regional figures. The baseline for the assessment is 1990, but data for 2000 are also presented, whenever possible, to provide a more detailed picture of progress since the Declaration was signed.
The basis for this analysis
This analysis is based on regional and sub regional figures compiled by the United Nations Inter-Agency and Expert Group on MDG Indicators. In general, the figures are weighted averages of country data, using the population of reference as a weight. To ensure comparability across countries and regions, the data are those used by international agencies within their area of expertise (see inside front cover for a list of the contributing organizations). For each indicator, individual agencies were designated to be the official providers of data and to take the lead in developing methodologies for data collection and analysis.
Data are typically drawn from official statistics provided by governments to the international agencies responsible for the indicator. This is done through periodic data collection from ministries and national statistical offices around the globe. To fill in frequent data gaps, many of the indicators are supplemented by or derived exclusively from data collected through surveys sponsored and carried out by international agencies.
These include many of the health indicators, which are compiled, for the most part, from Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys and Demographic and Health Surveys. In some cases, countries may have more recent data that have not yet become available to the relevant specialized agency. In other cases, countries do not produce the data required to compile the indicator, and the responsible international agencies estimate the missing values.
Finally, even when countries produce the necessary data, adjustments are often needed to ensure international comparability. Data in international sources therefore often differ from those available within countries. The United Nations Statistics Division maintains the official website of the Inter– Agency and Expert Group on MDG Indicators and its database – accessible at mdgs.un.org.
In an effort to improve transparency, the country data series in the database are given colour codes to indicate whether the figures are estimated or provided by national agencies; they are also accompanied by metadata with a complete explanation of how the indicators are produced and of the methodologies used for regional aggregates.
Discrepancies across sources and gaps in national data have raised concerns in the statistical community. Numerous interventions have recently been launched to reconcile national and international monitoring and to resolve the differences in methods and definitions used by different Agencies within countries and in international agencies.
Work is under way in countries to improve the availability of the necessary data, the coordination of national statistical systems and the mechanisms for reporting to international statistical agencies.
Building stronger statistical systems
These efforts to measure, monitor and report on progress towards the MDGs have highlighted the need to improve most developing countries’ capacity to produce, analyse and disseminate data. Since periodic assessment of the MDGs began over five years ago, a number of initiatives have been launched in this direction.
The 2004 Marrakech Action Plan for Statistics, adopted by aid recipients and donor stakeholders at the Second International Roundtable on Managing for Development Results, was a major step towards assisting developing countries in strengthening their statistical capacity.
The Inter-Agency and Expert Group on MDG Indicators is also addressing statistical capacity-building: together with international agencies, donors and representatives from national statistical offices, the Group is identifying national priorities and making recommendations for improvements in the delivery and coordination of statistical assistance to countries.
In 2006, the United Nations Economic and Social Council endorsed a resolution adopted by the United Nations Statistical Commission, comprised of representatives of national statistical services, highlighting the urgent need to build statistical capacity in countries where resources are limited. Building such capacity will require increased and better coordinated financial and technical support from the international community.
Achieving success will depend on country ownership and government commitment to spur the institutional changes needed to ensure the sustainability of capacity-building initiatives. 1 General Assembly resolution 60/1, 2005 World Summit Outcome.
2 The new MDG monitoring framework is available at http://mdgs.un.org 3 Given the time lag between collecting data and analysing them, few indicators have data for
the current year or 2007. Read more
