The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are eight goals to be achieved by 2015 that respond to the world's main development challenges. The MDGs are drawn from the actions and targets contained in theMillennium Declaration that was adopted by 189 nations-and signed by 147 heads of state and governments during the UN Millennium Summit in September 2000.

The eight MDGs break down into 21 quantifiable targets that are measured by 60 indicators.

The data from MDG Progress Report for Nepal 2010, prepared in partnership between the Government of Nepal and the UN Country Team, indicate that potentially Nepal will be able to achieve most of its MDG targets by 2015, except for the full employment and climate change. Despite the decade-long conflict and political instability, the progress has been remarkable in a number of areas. For example, People living below the national poverty line has gone down to 25.2%, Net enrollment rate has increased to 93.7%, gender parity has been achieved in enrolment for primary education, under five mortality reduced to 50 per 1000 live births and maternal mortality per 100000 live births has reduced by half in ten year time. Moreover, Nepal has succeeded to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS.

While the progress till date has not been sufficient to meet the targets on hunger, achieving universal primary education, eliminating gender disparity in secondary education and tertiary level of education, achieving universal access to treatment for HIV/AIDS for all those who need it, Nepal, however, is likely to achieve 2015 targets in these areas too with some additional efforts.

Despite the encouraging achievements over the years, the progress, however, has not been fairly distributed from the perspective of social, economic and geographical dimension. Income inequality is continuously increasing.

The 2010 Report thus strongly recommends addressing the issue of disparity and inequality and suggests for a greater focus on reviving agriculture with investments in rural infrastructure addressing the issue of food security, create a better environment for private-sector investment, reduce trade imbalances with major trading partners, and better utilization of foreign aid.

In order to identify resource needs to meet 2015 MDG targets, Government of Nepal with the technical support from the United Nation Development Program prepared The Millennium Development Goals Needs Assessment Report for Nepal 2010 . The report says that if the government is able to manage resources and build institutional and policy capacity for implementation of strategic interventions, most of the MDG targets can be met by 2015. The targets for full employment and climate change require strategic and accelerated efforts to be on track- requiring a joint effort from the government and development partners. A comparison between projected cost and projected available financial resources shows that there are serious funding gaps in all years between 2011 and 2015. The funding gap for 2011 is NRs 40.7 billion, for 2012 is NRs. 58.4 billion, for 2013 is NRs. 87.5 billion, for 2014 is NRs.132.9 billion and for 2015 is NRs. 131.9 billion.

UN's technical support in MDGs needs assessment exercise, preparation of the MDGs progress report 2010 and training to government officials on MDG consistent macro economic framework has contributed to integrate MDGs into the Government's Three-Year Plan 2010-2013.

UNDP and the other UN agencies in Nepal are actively supporting the Government in fulfilling its commitment to the MDGs. The Local Governance and Community Development Program (LGCDP), a large-scale joint programme of UNDP, UNCDF, UNICEF, UNFPA, UN Women and UNV on effective service delivery at the local level has been in operation since 2009 which will help create enabling environment at local level in achieving MDGs. UN agencies are also supporting the government in implementing various programs on the ground in the area of poverty reduction and employment creation (goal 1), education (goal 2), health (goal 4 and 5), combating HIV/AIDS (goal 6), women empowerment (goal 3) and environment sustainability (goal 6) . In addition, the UN is also supporting in developing the capacity of government in mainstreaming MDGs in its planning and monitoring since 2002 with the introduction of the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper. Together with the Regional Offices of UNDP, UNICEF, and UNFPA, the agencies have helped to conduct training on MDGs needs assessment and costing to the relevant government staff who are involved in preparing Three Year Plan. To help government of Nepal to accelerate off track MDGs, UN is also supporting  prepare MDG Acceleration Framework (MAF) in the area of sanitation.

The Millennium Development Goals in the current Three Year Plan (2010 -2013)

Upon the request of the government of Nepal, the UN country team helped prepare and finalize the Approach Paper of the Three year Plan (2010/2011-2012/2013). UNDP provided additional technical support in drafting and finalizing the full plan document. A number of initiatives were supported in a timely manner to make this plan MDG based. While MDG progress report provided a comprehensive picture towards achieving MDGs which severed as a baseline for this plan, MDG needs assessment exercise that took place under the leadership of the National Planning Commission and with the involvement of all development ministries helped to identify concrete strategies and resources needs to achieve MDGs by 2015. Policies and strategies suggested in the MDG needs assessment report are included in Three Year Plan. In order to ensure that MDGs are also integrating in programing and budgeting mechanism, government of Nepal has included "the achievement of MDGs" as one of the project prioritization criteria in the budget preparation process.

UNDP Nepal in partnership with the National Planning Commission has been supporting in tracking progress on various MDG goals, integrating MDGs into national plans and planning process.  Three MDG progress reports, two MDG needs assessment report and one MDG consistent macroeconomic model have been published, in addition to various other advocacy and capacity building measures.