The Millennium Development Goals are eight targets set by the UN to reduce poverty by 2015, including eradicating extreme poverty and hunger, achieving universal primary education, promoting gender equality, reducing child mortality, improving maternal health, combating HIV/AIDS and other diseases, ensuring environmental sustainability, and developing global partnerships. In 2000, 189 UN members committed to achieving the MDGs. The Philippines has made progress on some goals but faces challenges in maternal health, reproductive health, nutrition, education, and sustainability. While efforts have increased, meeting all the 2015 targets depends on further scaling up programs and resources.

1. The Millennium Development Goals
The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are a set of eight time-bound, concrete and specific targets aimed
at significantly reducing, if not decisively eradicating poverty, by the year 2015:
1. Eradicating extreme poverty and hunger;
2. Achieving universal primary education;
3. Promoting gender equality and empowering women;
4. Reducing child mortality;
5. Improving maternal health;
6. Combating HIV /AIDS, malaria and other diseases;
7. Ensuring environmental sustainability; and,
8. Developing global partnerships for development.
Global Commitment to the Millennium Development Goals
In September 2000, one hundred and eighty-nine UN member-countries -- rich and poor alike -- reaffirmed their
commitment to peace and security, good governance, and attention to the most vulnerable with the adoption of the
Millennium Declaration.
Containing commitments to achieve the eight MDGs and the specific targets under them by 2015, the Millennium
Declaration reflects the vision of entire nations, working together with international and country-based
organizations, to wipe out poverty and the worst forms of human deprivation, and lay the foundations for
sustainable human development by the year 2015.
The overarching need is to ensure that the MDGs are integrated into and given top priority in each committed
country's development planning efforts: with efficient monitoring, localization, and advocacy systems put in place;
crucial financing secured; multisectoral support mobilized; and an enabling environment created with an MDG-
responsive policy framework and legislation.
Philippine Commitment to the Millennium Development Goals
Since the Philippines first resolved to adopt the MDGs, it has made encouraging strides, particularly towards the
attainment of targets on reducing extreme poverty; child mortality; the incidence of HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and
malaria; on improving gender equality in education; and improving households' adequate dietary intake as well as
access to safe drinking water.
Underpinning these gains are two facts. First, the MDGs have been tightly integrated into the Medium-Term
Philippine Development Plan (MTPDP) 2004-2010, thus allowing government strategies, policies and action plans
to simultaneously address national and MDG targets. Second, the government has continually closely monitored
its own rate of progress in MDG indicators, and used this information to fine-tune its planning and implementation,
especially to ensure effective implementation at the local level.
Nevertheless, serious challenges and threats remain with regard to targets on maternal health, access to
reproductive health services, nutrition, primary education, and environmental sustainability. And glaring disparities
across regions persist, as do severe funding constraints.
The overall probability of attaining the targets remains high, though dependent largely on the confluence of several
factors, among them: scaling up of current efforts on all target areas; more efficient synchronization and allocation
of available limited resources, including mobilization of additional resources; and stronger advocacy for and
enhanced capability to implement the MDGs at the local level.
Source: http://www.undp.org.ph/?link=4
Answer the following questions on a one whole sheet of paper.
a. What are the common social issues/ problems faced by many Filipinos today? Base your answers in the 8
MDGs and cite specific examples.
b. Based on the MDG hand out, do you think the Philippines will be able to meet the 2015 deadline set by the
United Nations? Why or why not?