Write on millennium development goals and critique it. What is their aims and target?

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were the eight international development goals for the
year 2015 that had been established following the Millennium Summit of the United Nations in 2000,
following the adoption of the United Nations Millennium Declaration. All 189 United Nations member states at that time, and at least 22 international organizations, committed to help achieve the following Millennium
Development Goals by 2015:

To eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
To achieve universal primary
education
To promote gender equality and empower women
To reduce child mortality
To improve maternal health
To combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases
To ensure environmental sustainability
To develop a global partnership for development

The aims and target of the Millennium Development
Goals (MDGs)

The MDGs were developed out of several commitments
and set forth eight goals with 21 targets, and a series of measurable health indicators and economic indicators for each target.

Aim of Goal
1: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger

Targets

·
Halve, between 1990 and
2015, the proportion of people living on less than $1.25 a day.

·
Achieve decent employment
for women, men, and young people

·
Halve, between 1990 and
2015, the proportion of people who suffer from hunger

Aim of Goal 2: Achieve universal primary education

Target

·
By 2015, all children can
complete a full course of primary schooling, girls
and boys

Aim of Goal
3: Promote gender equality and empower women

Target:

·
Eliminate gender
disparity in primary and secondary education preferably by 2005, and at all levels
by 2015

Aim of Goal
4: Reduce child mortality rates

Target

·
Reduce by two-thirds,
between 1990 and 2015, the under-five mortality rate

Aim of Goal
5: Improve maternal health

Targets

·
Reduce by three quarters,
between 1990 and 2015, the maternal mortality ratio

·
Achieve, by 2015,
universal access to reproductive health

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

Targets

·
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

Aim of Goal
7: Ensure environmental sustainability

Targets

·
Integrate the principles
of sustainable development into country policies and programs; reverse loss of
environmental resources

·
Reduce biodiversity loss, achieving, by
2010, a significant reduction in the rate of loss

·
Halve, by 2015, the
proportion of the population without sustainable access to safe drinking water and
basic sanitation

·
By 2020, to have achieved
a significant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum-dwellers

Aim of Goal
8: Develop a global partnership for development

Targets

·
Develop further an open,
rule-based, predictable, non-discriminatory trading and financial system

·
Address the Special Needs
of the Least Developed Countries (LDCs)

·
Address the special needs
of landlocked developing countries and small island developing States

·
Deal comprehensively with
the debt problems of developing countries through national and international
measures in order to make debt sustainable in the long term

·
In co-operation with
pharmaceutical companies, provide access to affordable, essential drugs in
developing countries

·
In co-operation with the
private sector, make available the benefits of new technologies, especially information and communications

Criticism
of Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)

·
General criticisms of MDGs include a perceived lack
of analytical power and justification behind the chosen objectives.

·
The MDGs lack strong objectives and indicators for
within-country equality, despite significant disparities in many developing
nations.

·
MDG 8 uniquely focuses on donor achievements,
rather than development successes.

·
The MDGs were attacked for insufficient emphasis on
environmental sustainability.
Thus, they do not capture all elements needed to achieve the ideals set out in
the Millennium Declaration.

·
Agriculture was not specifically mentioned in the
MDGs even though most of the world’s poor are farmers.

·
Alleged lack of legitimacy: The entire MDG
process has been accused of lacking legitimacy
as a result of failure to include, often, the voices of the very participants
that the MDGs seek to assist. The major limitation of the MDGs by 2015 was the
lack of political will to implement due to the lack of ownership of the MDGs by
the most affected constituencies.

·
Human rights:The MDGs under-emphasized local participation and
empowerment (other than women’s empowerment).

·
Human capital: MDG 2 focuses on primary education and emphasizes
enrollment and completion. In some countries, primary enrollment increased at
the expense of achievement levels. In some cases, the emphasis on primary
education has negatively affected secondary and post-secondary education.

References

Andy, H.& Andrew, C.(2004).Can The Millennium
Development Goals Be Attained? BMJ: British
Medical Journal, Vol. 329,
No. 7462 pp. 394-397

Attaran, A.
(2005). An Immeasurable Crisis?A Criticism of the Millennium Development Goals
and Why They Cannot Be Measured.PLOS Medicine.2 (10): 318

Daniel, C. (2012). Empowerment on an Unstable
Planet: From Seeds of Human Energy to a Scale of Global Change. New York:
Oxford University Press.

Shahani,
L. (2009). An introduction to the human development and capability approach
freedom and agency. Sterling, Virginia Ottawa, Ontario: Earthscan International
Development Research Centre

Waage,
J. (2010). The Millennium
Development Goals: a cross-sectoral analysis and principles for goal setting
after 2015. The Lancet.376(9745): 991–1023