Picture This: We Can End Poverty

With a presence on the ground in more than 160 countries, UNDP is dedicated to helping countries achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), eight human development targets that the world’s governments adopted in 2001 and pledged to achieve by 2015. With only five years left to the deadline, attaining the MDGs has become a crucial component of UNDP’s development work.

The eight Goals are:

• Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
• Achieve universal primary education
• Promote gender equality and empower women
• Reduce child mortality
• Improve maternal health
• Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases
• Ensure environmental sustainability
• Develop a global partnership for development

While it is the governments of the world who committed to achieving the MDGs in their countries, it is ordinary people who are the lynchpin of any success in realizing these ambitious targets. The time has come for the world to realize that we all have a role to play to achieve the Goals, and that regardless of where we live or what we do, we all have the potential to contribute to human development in our countries, communities and villages.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has called on world leaders to attend a summit this September in New York during the UN General Assembly to boost progress towards the MDGs. UNDP believes it must redouble its efforts to raise awareness on both the progress that has been made toward achieving the Goals, and the great and immediate challenges that lie before us in the course of the next five years.

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Video— “Make it Happen”