Sections:
Five goals, ten countries, many achievements
Will we really halve global poverty and hunger by 2015? Will every child
around the world have access to primary education by 2015?
These targets are part of the Millennium Development Goals agreed by the United Nations in 2000.
The Goals aim to make a real difference to people's lives in the developing world, by encouraging the international community to work together to tackle world poverty.
While we are on the way to meeting many of the targets set by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), others clearly won't be met without a massive effort from the international community. But when governments, international agencies and charities work together we really can achieve a lot.
The examples below demonstrate how life has improved over the last three decades in ten different countries around the world. The countries featured below have done most of the work in improving life for their people, but DFID's support has also helped to make a real difference.
Poverty
Image courtesy of UNICEF
Rwanda has made extraordinary progress since the 1994 genocide.
A Poverty Reduction Strategy is now in place and it has started to work: in the last
decade the number of people living in poverty has fallen by over 10%, from 70%
in 1994 to under 60% in 2002. Read the
'Rwanda
Voices' Developments Magazine feature.
In 1991 43% of people in Bangladesh lived below the poverty line. By 2000, that figure had fallen to 34% living on less than $1 a day. That's equivalent to more than 1,300 people every day escaping poverty. Since 1996, DFID has given over £500m in aid to Bangladesh.
Education
In 1970, net primary school enrolment in
Botswana was 48.2%. By 2000 that
figure had increased to 83.6%. DFID currently spends £2m a year on improving
education and rural livelihoods in Botswana.
China's economy has boomed in recent years and by 1998 net primary school enrolment stood at 93.2%. But this masked marked inequalities between the richer eastern provinces and poorer western provinces.
A DFID-supported project
with the World Bank will enable a further 2.4 million children to go to school
in 112 counties in Western China. Find out more on the World
Bank's page on the Basic Education Project in Western China or read Ma
Jinfang's story
Girls in schools
In
Tanzania girls have just about achieved equality with boys in primary
school education - in 2000 the ratio of girls to boys in school was 98.9%, up
from 65.2% in 1970. More on how
DFID is making a difference in Africa.
Pakistan has also achieved greater equality for girls in primary schools over the past 30 years.
In 1970, the ratio of girls to boys in school was just 34.1%. By 2000, the ratio had jumped to 62.2%. Read more about how we're helping to encourage villagers in rural Pakistan to send their daughters to school.
Child mortality
Image courtesy of Pan-American Health Organisation
In Ecuador in 1975, 119 children out of every 1,000 live
births died before they were five. In 2001, that number had dropped to 30. For
more details, see UNICEF's announcement
on falling child mortality rates across Latin America.
In Egypt, the number of children dying before their fifth birthday dropped
from 205 per 1,000 live births in 1975 to 41 in 2001. During the 1990s alone,
child mortality in this country dropped by 26 percent - see USAIDS
article on health indicators.
Women's health
Image courtesy of Nepal Schools Project
Maternal mortality can be difficult to measure accurately. In some countries, registration of the population is still incomplete and the cause of death may be inaccurately reported.
In Gambia, the estimated maternal mortality rate almost halved from 1990 to 2000,
from 1,000 to 540 women per 100,000 live births. See Development research
magazine ID21's article
on falling maternity mortality rates in Gambia.
Nepal has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in south east Asia. From 1990-1993 an estimated 1,500 women there died from pregnancy-related causes per 100,000 live births.
By 2000 this figure had more than halved, but an estimated 740 women still die per 100,000 live births. DFID has supported Nepal's safer motherhood programmes since 1997. This has increased access to emergency care in ten districts, covering some 3.5 million people, or 15% of the population. Read more about maternal healthcare in Nepal.
- MDG 5: Maternal health
- 'Reducing
maternal deaths: evidence and action'
(1.4
MB) - Gambia homepage
- Nepal homepage