The overarching objective of Irish Aid is the reduction of poverty, inequality and exclusion in developing countries. All of Irish Aid's policies and activities are measured against their contribution to the reduction of poverty and against the progress they achieve towards the development targets set by the international community.

What are the Millennium Development Goals (MDGS)?

The eight United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGS) are important commitments agreed by all 191 UN member states, including Ireland, aimed at the reduction of global poverty in all its forms by the year 2015. Progress on the Goals will be reviewed at a Summit Meeting at the United Nations in New York in September 2010.
The United Nations Millennium Declaration, signed in September 2000 commits world leaders to specific targets and indicators in the following eight key areas:

Goal 1: Eradicate Extreme Hunger and Poverty

• Halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people whose income is less than one dollar 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.

Please see below an outcome document of a High Level Side event on maternal mortality and MDG 5 recently hosted by Ireland at the United Nations.

MDG5 - Commission on the Status of Women Outcome Document on Maternal Mortality

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 programmes 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.
• By 2020, to have achieved 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 the 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 the debt problems of developing countries through national and international measures in order to make debt sustainable in the long term.
•In cooperation with pharmaceutical companies, provide access to affordable essential drugs in developing countries.
•In cooperation with the private sector, make available the benefits of new technologies, especially information and communications.

Clearly the causes of poverty cannot be addressed in isolation and are interwoven to such a degree that a comprehensive, holistic and cross-sectoral approach is crucial, if a real and sustainable reduction in poverty is to be achieved.

The Millennium Development Goals, and the specific targets set to enable their achievement to be measured, provide the context in which Irish Aid priority sectors are decided. The topics represented within the ‘Our Work’ section of the website focus on these key sectoral areas addressed by the Irish Aid programme and how they are interrelated.

Additional Resources

United Nations MDG Summit 2010
United Nations Development Programme work on the MDGs
Millennium Development Goals- Country Reports
The United Nations Millennium Project
UN Statistics Division - Millennium Indicators Database
World Bank--Millennium Development Goals
OECD Observer articles on the MDGs
MDG Monitor