In this issue, we focus on MDG 8 as the foundational goal, creating the conditions for achieving MDGs 1 to 7. While developing countries are called upon to improve governance to ensure that development initiatives reach those groups that would benefit most, the donor nations in the developed world are asked to make broad policy commitments to enable access to resources for development.
There has been too little progress towards the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). At present, 40 per cent of the world's population is living below the minimum sanitation threshold, two thirds of all illiterate people are women and over 65 per cent of the people affected by HIV/AIDS live in Africa.
On 29 November 2007, Norway and the United Republic of Tanzania signed a bilateral agreement to support Tanzania's efforts to reduce child mortality and maternal mortality. The modality for support is to channel funds through a common financing basket for the health sector, together with a number of bilateral and multilateral partners, with no earmarking of the Norwegian funds.
One sixth of the world's population lives in fragile States, which are also home to one out of every three people surviving on less than a dollar a day. Of all the children in the world who die before reaching their fifth birthday, half were born in these countries. Of all the women who die in childbirth, one in three dies in these countries. While other developing countries are making progress towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), these fragile nations, ranging from Haiti to Nepal, from Burundi to Uzbekistan, are falling behind.
Developing countries depend on national and global economic growth to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015. In this regard, international trade is recognized as a powerful instrument to stimulate economic progress and alleviate poverty.
W. Arthur Lewis' best-known contribution to development economics was his path-breaking work on the transfer of labour from a traditional to a modern capitalist sector in conditions of unlimited supplies of labour.
A new series in the UN Chronicle will highlight the major intellectual contributions and policy consequences of work undertaken by major researchers who worked with the United Nations system during their careers.
Of the many economists who have worked for the United Nations, Hans W. Singer was the one who did more, and for more different parts of the Organization, than any other.
The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) summarize the development targets agreed to at international conferences and world summits during the 1990s. At the end of the last century, world leaders distilled the key goals and targets in the Millennium Declaration adopted in September 2000.
It was the best news for decades, when in 2000 world leaders acknowledged that the most urgent matter at the dawn of the new century was to put an end to poverty, and that the world has the resources and the know-how to do so.
The regions covered by the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) -- the whole European continent, North America and Central Asia -- are characterized by a tremendous diversity in levels of economic development. While most countries of Western Europe and North America have levels of gross domestic product (GDP) per capita well above $20,000, for Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia (EECCA) and South Eastern Europe (SEE), the level is below $10,000.
