UN Millennium Development Goals: Status and Progress (2018)
The UN's Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) aimed to improve global health and reduce poverty. While significant progress was made towards the goals, which concluded in 2015, not all targets were met.
The World Health Organization (WHO) released a progress report in February 2018 on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), a set of eight targets agreed upon by UN Member States to be achieved by 2015. The report detailed advancements in global health while also highlighting areas where targets fell short.
Globally, the number of deaths among children under five years of age saw a substantial decline, decreasing from 12.7 million in 1990 to 6.3 million in 2013. In developing countries, the percentage of underweight children under five dropped from 28% to 17% over the same period.
New HIV infections decreased globally by 38% between 2001 and 2013. Tuberculosis cases and deaths also saw reductions. Furthermore, the world met the target for access to safe drinking water in 2010.
However, progress was unevenly distributed, with many countries affected by high levels of HIV/AIDS, economic hardship, or conflict lagging behind. Not all health-related goals were fully met, including the target to reduce maternal mortality by two-thirds and achieve universal access to reproductive health.
The MDGs have since been superseded by the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which expand upon and deepen the previous efforts towards a more sustainable and equitable world by 2030.