Millennium Development Goals

As a result of the Millennium Declaration in 2000, the UN General Assembly adopted a framework focused on poverty alleviation called the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in 2001. The MDGs consist of eight goals, each accompanied by a series of targets toward which governments have committed to work by 2015 and 2020.

The Millennium Development Goals
Goal 1: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
Goal 2: Achieve universal primary education
Goal 3: Promote gender equality and empower women
Goal 4: Reduce child mortality
Goal 5: Improve maternal health
Goal 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases
Goal 7: Ensure environmental sustainability
Goal 8: Develop a global partnership for development

While universal access to sexual and reproductive health services and care is not included as one of the MDGs, most people accept that it is an essential strategy for each and every one of the eight content goals. The revised draft outcome document of the high-level plenary meeting of the General Assembly of September 2005 submitted by the President of the General Assembly proposes that it is necessary to:

“…achieve universal access to reproductive health by 2015, as set out at the International Conference on Population and Development, integrating this goal in strategies to attain the international development goals, including those contained in the Millennium Declaration aimed at improving maternal health, reducing child mortality, promoting gender equality, combating HIV/AIDS and eradicating poverty.”

Thus the Cairo Consensus is just as valid as when it was first proposed. In fact, a wider set of development actors – in education, child survival, poverty eradication and environment – will become increasingly involved in linking their work to SRHR programs throughout the world as they work to achieve the MDGs. To learn more about the MDGs and SRHR review Millenium Development Goals & Sexual and Reproductive Health Briefing Cards (Family Care International).