Home // About Us // The Millenium Development Goals
In September 2000, the United Nations Millennium Summit brought together the largest gathering of world leaders in history. In the summit's final declaration, signed by 189 countries, the international community committed to a specific agenda for reducing global poverty. This agenda listed eight Millennium Development Goals which not only identified the gains needed but quantified them and established yardsticks for measuring improvements in people's lives. At the rate we are going we will not meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
The growing international awareness that many of the MDGs will not be reached unless malnutrition is tackled, and that this continued failure of the development community to tackle malnutrition may derail other international efforts in health and in poverty reduction. There is now unequivocal evidence that there are workable solutions to the malnutrition problem and that they are excellent economic investments.
| Goal | Nutrition Effect |
| Goal 1: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger | Malnutrition erodes human capital through irreversible and intergenerational effects on cognitive and physical development. |
| Goal 2: Achieve universal primary education | Malnutrition affects the chances that a child will go to school, stay in school, and perform well. |
| Goal 3: Promote gender equality and empower women. | Anti-female biases in access to food, health, and care resources may result in malnutrition, possibly reducing women’s access to assets. Addressing malnutrition empowers women more than men. |
| Goal 4: Reduce child mortality. |
Malnutrition is directly or indirectly associated with most child deaths, and it is the main contributor to the burden of disease in the developing world. |
| Goal 5: Improve maternal health. | Maternal health is compromised by malnutrition, which is associated with most major risk factors for maternal mortality. Maternal stunting and iron deficiencies particularly pose serious problems. |
| Goal 6: Combat HIV/ AIDS, malaria, and other diseases. | Malnutrition may increase risk of HIV transmission, compromise antiretroviral therapy, and hasten the onset of full blown AIDS and premature death. It increases the chances of tuberculosis infection, resulting in disease, and it also reduces malarial survival rates. |
| The World Bank. Repositioning Nutrition as Central to Development. Washington, DC: World Bank, 2006 | |
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