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.

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.

When the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Millennium Declaration in 2000, the goals and targets it set in the section on development ultimately became known as the Millennium Development Goals.

In March 2000, then UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan published his report, 'We the Peoples': The Role of the United Nations in the 21st Century, listing the major challenges in the world.

In December 2006, the UN General Assembly declared 2008 as the International Year of Sanitation. The intention was to raise awareness of the importance of sanitation and encourage Governments, partners and communities to embrace the need for urgent action to reduce the number of people living without this basic service.

Malaria is an extremely serious human rights issue. Six out of eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) cannot be achieved without tackling this disease. It is both a cause and a consequence of poverty. Its impact is especially ferocious on the poorest: those least able to afford preventive measures and medical treatment.

Seven years on and halfway towards 2015 -- the deadline set for the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals -- success is still possible. The MDGs, which set quantitative benchmarks to halve extreme poverty in all its forms, are achievable if countries implement national development strategies and receive adequate support from the international community.

Each year, 2.5 million people become infected with HIV, 8 million contract tuberculosis (TB), and between 300 million and 500 million fall ill from malaria. Together, these diseases kill more than 5 million people per year, the equivalent of a full 747 airplane crashing every 44 minutes1.

Education improves health, while health improves learning potential. Education and health complement, enhance and support each other; together, they serve as the foundation for a better world. To be able to read, write and calculate has been acknowledged as a human right.