Accelerating action: Global leaders on challenges & opportunities for MDG achievement

Fourteen years ago world leaders unanimously adopted the Millennium Declaration, which sought to harness the uneven process of globalization as a historic opportunity “to create a shared future, based upon our common humanity in all its diversity”. The Millennium Development Goals framework, adopted at the same time, was the concrete expression of that vision. The goals to be met by the end of 2015 on extreme poverty, health, education, gender equality, and environmental sustainability were ambitious. But for the first time, global development targets were specific, actionable, and measurable. The locus of responsibility for achieving the goals rested, appropriately, with national governments. But by incorporating measures of donor effort, the MDG framework also laid the foundation for new global development partnerships that have accelerated progress and deepened international solidarity.