September 15, 2006	Friday	Sha'aban 21, 1427

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ISLAMABAD, Sept 14: United Nations is to revise the targets of the millennium development goals (MDGs) to incorporate the commitments made by United Nations member countries at their 2005 World Summit.

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan in a report prepared for the General Assembly session scheduled to open next week, said the words of 2005 have yet to have a direct impact on the lives of the poor people they are meant to help. Nor have they produced the implementation breakthroughs required to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, Mr. Annan said.

Mr. Annan, whose term of office expires in December, said: “If history judges 2005 for its promises, then 2006 must be judged on implementation. Are we on course to look back, in 2015, and say that no effort was spared? So far the record is mixed.”

Under the proposed amendments, a new target under Millennium Development Goal 1 is to be incorporated to make the goals of full and productive employment and decent work for all, including for women and young people, a central objective of our relevant national and international policies and our national development strategies.

The new target under Goal 5 aims to achieve universal access to reproductive health by 2015, while the new target under Goal 6 should help come as close as possible to universal access to treatment for HIV/AIDS by 2010 for all those who need it. The new target under the Goal 7 is to significantly reduce the rate of loss of biodiversity by 2010.

The existing target on developing decent and productive work for youth, currently under millennium development goal 8, would be encompassed by the new target under Goal 1.

The UN Secretary-General said in his report that he personally wrote to all heads of state and governments offering UN assistance and support to ensure that member states can respond to their countries’ development priorities. “I am heartened to note that the United Nations country teams are currently helping many countries to prepare and implement millennium development goal-based national development strategies, he said

In his report, Mr Annan said the political momentum of member countries offers the opportunity to build on the world’s considerable recent development successes. As highlighted in the statistical annex to the present report, from 1990 to 2002, the developing world’s proportion of people living in extreme poverty dropped from 28 per cent to 19 per cent, driven mostly by gains in eastern and southern Asia.

Average child mortality rates in developing countries fell from 95 deaths per 1,000 live births in 1990 to 79 in 2004. More than 1.2 billion people gained access to improved sanitation over the same period. From 1991 to 2004, average net primary enrolment ratios in developing regions increased from 79 per cent to 86 per cent.

To eradicate extreme poverty and hunger (MDG Goal 1) the target is to halve, by 2015, the proportion of people whose income is less than one dollar a day. Goal 2 aims to achieve universal primary education and the target is to ensure that by 2015, children everywhere, boys and girls alike, will be able to complete a full course of primary schooling. Goal 3 aims to promote gender equality and empower women and to achieve this, the target is to eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education, preferably by 2005, and to all levels of education no later than 2015. Goal 5 is to reduce child mortality and the target is to reduce by two thirds by 2015 the under-5 mortality rate.

The eight millennium development 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; and Develop Global partnership for Development.