Millennium Development Goals

In September 2000 Heads of State from all over the world, including the President of Indonesia, gathered at the United Nations Millennium Summit in New York and signed the Millennium Declaration. They thereby reaffirmed the commitment of their nations and the international community to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals, a set of measurable objectives for development and poverty eradication.

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) essentially embody the international commitments made at the United Nations World Summits and global conferences throughout the 1990s. By signing the Millennium Declaration world leaders pledged to halve the proportion of people suffering from hunger, ensure that all children can complete primary education, eliminate gender disparity at all levels of education, reduce under-five and infant mortality rates by two thirds, and halve the proportion of people without access to improved water sources by 2015.

As a follow-up to the commitments made in the Millennium Summit, each signatory country is expected to prepare a Millennium Development Goals Report. The Government of Indonesia, under the leadership of the national planning agency and with technical support from a UN Task Force, has completed the first MDG Report. It was drafted in Indonesian and later translated into English, reflecting the Government's strong sense of ownership of the report. The preparation process involved active participation of, and extensive consultations among, key ministries responsible for implementing policies and programmes directed towards the realization of the MDGs.

The report represents the Government's initial attempt to take stock of the country's human development situation relating to the MDG targets, measure and analyze progress towards their realization, and identify and review policies and programmes required to meet the targets. With reference to the goal of halving the proportion of people whose income is below the national poverty line between 1990 and 2015, the Report shows that Indonesia is on track towards attaining that goal. However, prospects across provinces are uneven.

Apart from enhancing awareness, understanding and appreciation of the MDGs by the Indonesian public, the report could be used as an advocacy tool by national and local parliaments, CSOs and the media in promoting policies, programmes and resource allocation decisions to realize the MDG targets.

Source:http://www.undp.or.id