Liza Coffin outlines the UNMDG’s focus in child issues. - Liza Coffin

All eight UN Millennium Development Goals have the potential to change the lives of the world’s children for the better. Three of these goals are directly targeted at children:

• Goal 2: achieve universal primary education

Ensure that, by 2015, children everywhere, boys and girls alike, will be able to complete a full course of primary schooling.

The 1990 Conference on Education for All pledged to achieve universal primary education by 2000. But in 2000, 115 million school-age children were still not in school, 56 percent of them girls and 94 percent were in developing countries – mostly in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. The Millennium Development Goals set a more realistic deadline.

• Goal 3: promote gender equality and empower women

Eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education, preferably by 2005, and to all levels of education no later than 2015.

Women have an enormous impact on the well-being of their families and societies – yet their potential is not realised because of discriminatory social norms, incentives, and legal institutions. Gender inequality starts early. Girls are more likely to drop out of school and to receive less education than boys because of discrimination, education expenses, and household duties.

• Goal 4: reduce child mortality

Reduce by two thirds, between 1990 and 2015, the under-five mortality rate.

More than 10 million children die each year in the developing world, the vast majority from causes preventable through a combination of good care, nutrition, and medical treatment. In low-income countries, one child in 11 dies before its fifth birthday, compared with 1 in 143 in high-income countries.

For more information about the Millennium Development Goals and the progress that is being made towards achieving them, visit the following links:

www.developmentgoals.org

www.un.org/millenniumgoals/

http://society.guardian.co.uk/societyguardian/story/0,7843,1165468,00.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/leaders/story/0,3604,1149641,00.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1149063,00.html - Gordon Brown & Jim Wolfensohn on the MDGs