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Summary: In 2000, the UN General Assembly agreed a set of goals for development across the world with targets for improvements by 2015: 8 Millennium Development Goals. The Millennium Review Summit beginning next month is supposed to review the progress towards meeting these goals. Meeting the MDGs would mean lifting 300 million children out of abject poverty.
This briefing explores the progress to date of the health and education MDGs, their implications for children, and makes recommendations for change. The briefing states that a key target - to eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education by 2005 - has been missed, and that this has not been recognised. More than 70 countries around the world still do not have as many girls as boys in schools. Over 100 million children including 60 million girls across the world are missing an education. Millions of girls and their families miss out on the chance of a better, healthier life. Educated girls tend to marry later, have smaller families and be less likely to become HIV-positive. In terms of the health-related MDGs, the briefing finds that every day, 30,000 children die from the effects of poverty, many from easily preventable illness and disease. Four out of ten children under the age of five who die in the developing world do not survive their first month. At current rates of progress in sub-Saharan Africa it will take 150 years to meet MDG 4. Over 270 million children still have no access to healthcare. Lack of access to health services contributes to the appalling figures for child and maternal health in the developing world. Recommendations include: * $5.5 billion of additional aid is needed every year to meet the MDGs for education. Governments need to be funded so that they can financially support schools and abolish school fees * an additional $18 billion per year is needed immediately to meet the health MDGs globally. International donors must enable countries to abolish fees for healthcare, and provide aid to deliver quality health services and strengthened health systems * it is crucial that mechanisms are put in place to ensure that resources that have been pledged for HIV/AIDS are delivered to community level to benefit the poorest.