title: The Millennium Development Goals: experiences, achievements and what's next.
abstract: The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are eight international development goals to be achieved by 2015 addressing poverty, hunger, maternal and child mortality, communicable disease, education, gender inequality, environmental damage and the global partnership. Most activities worldwide have focused on maternal and child health and communicable diseases, while less attention has been paid to environmental sustainability and the development of a global partnership. Up to now, several targets have been at least partially achieved: hunger reduction is on track, poverty has been reduced by half, living conditions of 200 million deprived people enhanced, maternal and child mortality as well as communicable diseases diminished and education improved. Nevertheless, some goals will not be met, particularly in the poorest regions, due to different challenges (e.g. the lack of synergies among the goals, the economic crisis, etc.). The post-2015 agenda is now under discussion. The new targets, whatever they will be called, should reflect today's political situation, health and environmental challenges, and an all-inclusive, intersectoral and accountable approach should be adopted.
authors.affiliation: World Federation of Public Health Associations, c/o IGH/CMU, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland; Institute of Global Health, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland; marta.lomazzi@unige.ch.
authors.forename: Marta
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Lomazzi
authors.affiliation: World Federation of Public Health Associations, c/o IGH/CMU, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland; Institute of Global Health, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Bettina
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Borisch
authors.affiliation: World Federation of Public Health Associations, c/o IGH/CMU, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland; Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Bielefeld, Bielefeld, Germany.
authors.forename: Ulrich
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Laaser
mesh_terms: D014943:Global Health; D006285:Health Planning; D006292:Health Priorities; D040361:Healthy People Programs / Q000458:organization & administration; D006801:Humans; D007391:International Cooperation; D009937:Organizational Objectives; D015397:Program Evaluation
keywords: Millennium Development Goals; accountability; education; equity; governments; post-2015 agenda; sustainable development