Poverty Reduction

Progress towards the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) is too slow in many parts of the world. The crisis is most severe in sub-Saharan Africa where, despite some successes such as increased primary school enrollment, the majority of countries are not on track to achieving the MDGs.

At a global level, progress has been made but the gains are uneven. Small-island developing states and landlocked developing countries face severe challenges, while high rates of inequality in many middle-income countries mean that entire regions or social groups will be left behind.

Time is running out: this year, 2007, marks the half-way point of the MDGs. Yet even now, crucial development policies and finance are not systematically aligned with the MDGs. As part of its poverty reduction mandate, UNDP is working to bridge this gap.

MDG Support, established in 2006, is designed to quickly mobilize technical support from across UNDP and the UN System to help developing country governments achieve the MDGs. The successor of Jeffrey Sachs’s UN Millennium Project, MDG Support works with countries by invitation, helping to prepare and implement national development strategies that are bold enough to achieve the MDGs.

However, without adequate financing, these plans are neither viable nor realistic. By itself, the long-standing commitment by the developed world to contribute just 70 cents of every $100 earned to official development assistance would generate enough funding to implement national strategies capable of achieving the MDGs.

It is encouraging that European Union countries have now committed to reaching the 0.7 target by 2015 and that the Group of Eight countries have now pledged to double development assistance to Africa by 2010, bringing the figure to $50 billion. However, all donor countries urgently need to fulfill their commitment to existing pledges.

For this reason, MDG Support works with a broad range of actors, across the UN System as well as with the International Financial Institutions, to generate more and better support for countries’ national plans to hit the MDG targets. It works to improve the tools and methodologies available, to train staff and government officials, and to strengthen ways of sharing knowledge and experiences.

Key activities include:

a). MDG-based National Development Strategies -Assisting developing countries to prepare and implement national strategies to achieve the Goals;

b). MDG Tools and Research – Developing tools and methodologies to adapt the MDGs to a country-specific context, to support MDG needs assessments, to build capacity, and to strengthen policies in support of the Goals;

c). UN Coordination – Mobilizing technical expertise across the UN System to provide broad support for the design of countries’ MDG-based national development strategies;

d). MDG Data and Resources – Consolidating and sharing key resources on the MDGs and spotlighting successful MDG initiatives.