A Practical Plan to Achieve the Millennium Development Goals.
We have the opportunity in the coming decade to cut world poverty by half. Billions more people could enjoy the fruits of the global economy. Tens of millions of lives can be saved. The practical solutions exist. The political framework is established. And for the first time, the cost is utterly affordable. Whatever one’s motivation for attacking the crisis of extreme poverty—human rights, religious values, security, fiscal prudence, ideology—the solutions are the same. All that is needed is action.

This report recommends the way forward. It outlines a way to attain this bold ambition. It describes how to achieve the Millennium Development Goals.

	Preface, goals, and key recommendations
Chapter 1.	The Millennium Development Goals and why they matter
Chapter 2.	Where we stand with only a decade to go
Chapter 3.	Why the world is falling short of the Goals
Chapter 4.	MDG-based poverty reduction strategies
Chapter 5.	Public investments to empower poor people
Chapter 6.	Key elements for rapid scale-up
Chapter 7.	Governance to achieve the Millennium Development Goals
Chapter 8.	Civil society's contribution to the Millennium Development Goals
Chapter 9.	Contributions of the private sector
Chapter 10.	Africa's special needs
Chapter 11.	Investment priorities for reaching the Millennium Development Goals in other regions
Chapter 12.	Strategies for countries affected by conflict
Chapter 13.	Fixing the aid system
Chapter 14.	A global breakthrough in trade
Chapter 15.	Regional and global goods
Chapter 16.	Getting started in 2005: launching a decade of bold ambition
Chapter 17.	Resources required to finance the Millennium Development Goals
Chapter 18.	The benefits: the case for a decade of bold ambition
	Appendixes
	Notes, references, and acknowledgments

The UN Millennium Project was commissioned by the UN Secretary-General and sponsored by the United Nations Development Programme on behalf of the UN Development Group. The report is an independent publication. This publication does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations, the United Nations Development Programme, or their Member States.

Set for the year 2015, the MDGs are an agreed set of goals that can be achieved if all actors work together and do their part. Poor countries have pledged to govern better, and invest in their people through health care and education. Rich countries have pledged to support them, through aid, debt relief, and fairer trade.

"Looking ahead to 2015 and beyond, there is no question that we can achieve the overarching goal: we can put an end to poverty. In almost all instances, experience has demonstrated the validity of earlier agreements on the way forward; in other words, we know what to do. But it requires an unswerving, collective, long-term effort." United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.

The MDGs represent a global partnership that has grown from the commitments and targets established at the world summits of the 1990s. Responding to the world's main development challenges and to the calls of civil society, the MDGs promote poverty reduction, education, maternal health, gender equality, and aim at combating child mortality, AIDS and other diseases.Set for the year 2015, the MDGs are an agreed set of goals that can be achieved if all actors work together and do their part. Poor countries have pledged to govern better, and invest in their people through health care and education. Rich countries have pledged to support them, through aid, debt relief, and fairer trade.