The Millennium Development Goals

Habitat for Humanity joins other organizations and nations around the world in supporting the Millennium Development Goals. These eight goals, developed during the 2000 U.N. Millennium Summit, focus on a vision for the future with fewer people living in poverty, better educated children, and a world in which developed and developing countries work in partnership for the betterment of all.

Why Habitat for Humanity supports the Millennium Development Goals
Habitat for Humanity’s mission is to eliminate poverty housing and homelessness from the world, and to make decent shelter a matter of conscience and action. Although our work is most directly related to Goal 7: Target 11, which aims to achieve significant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers by 2020, our programs in community development, housing finance, disaster response, enterprise development, financial literacy, and others directly impact all eight Millennium Development Goals and the framework for development they have established around the world.

How Habitat for Humanity supports the Millennium Development Goals
Habitat for Humanity also supports the Millennium Development Goals through its membership in the ONE Campaign in the United States and other sister coalitions around the world focused on achieving the MDGs. The ONE Campaign rallies Americans to encourage the U.S. government to allocate 1 percent of the federal budget to poverty-focused development assistance. ONE links directly to the international effort to achieve the Millennium Development Goals; 1 percent more of the U.S. federal budget would help save millions of lives and be a major commitment towards achieving the internationally agreed upon Millennium Development Goals.

The Millennium Development Goals-History and Importance
The Millennium Development Goals, part of the Millennium Declaration, were developed during the 2000 U.N. Millennium Summit held in September at the United Nations headquarters in New York City. The purpose of the summit was to help determine what role the United Nations should play in the 21st century.

The eight time-bound Millennium Development Goals set out to end extreme worldwide poverty by the year 2015. The Millennium Development Goals are a compact between developed and developing countries, and major financial institutions such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and members of the World Trade Organization. Developed countries agreed to provide resources, and developing countries agreed to improve policies and hold citizens accountable in order to end global poverty.

The Millennium Development Goals represent an understanding that in order for worldwide poverty to be eliminated, it will be necessary for countries to work together to successfully achieve all eight goals by 2015. To ensure that the goals are being worked toward, performance is being monitored through national Millennium Goals reports, United Nations Secretary General’s reports to the United Nations General Assembly, and reports constructed by civil society organizations around the world.

The Millennium Development Goals

Goal 1: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger

• By 2015, reduce by half the proportion of people living on less than a dollar a day
• By 2015, reduce by half the proportion of people who suffer from hunger

Goal 2: Achieve universal primary education

• By 2015 ensure that all boys and girls complete a full course of primary schooling

Goal 3: Promote gender equality and empower women

• By 2015 eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education preferably by 2005, and at all levels by 2015

Goal 4: Reduce child mortality

• By 2015 reduce by two-thirds the mortality rate among children under 5

Goal 5: Improve maternal health

• By 2015, reduce by three-quarters the maternal mortality rate

Goal 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases

• By 2015, halt and begin to reverse the spread of AIDS
• By 2015, halt and begin to reverse the incidence of malaria and other major diseases

Goal 7: Ensure environmental sustainability

• By 2015, integrate the principles of sustainable development into country policies and programs; reverse loss of environmental resources
• By 2015, reduce by half the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water
• By 2020, achieve significant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers

Goal 8: Develop a global partnership for development

• By 2015, further develop an open trading and financial system that is rule-based, predictable and non-discriminatory
• Address the least developed countries’ special needs
• Deal comprehensively with developing countries’ debt problems through national and international measures to make debt sustainable in the long term

For examples on Habitat’s work around the world to work toward the Millennium Development Goals, visit “30 Years of Building Hope and Homes”