This report summarizes Bangladesh's progress toward achieving the eight Millennium Development Goals by 2015. Bangladesh has met or is on track to meet most of the MDG targets, including reducing poverty, achieving universal primary education, improving gender equality, reducing child and maternal mortality, and increasing access to clean water. However, more work remains to be done to ensure environmental sustainability and combat diseases. With the MDG deadline approaching, the UN has proposed a new set of Sustainable Development Goals to continue progress on development from 2015-2030.

1. Prepared By
Sudipta Bala
3rd
Semester BBA,
North-South University
Report on MDGs
Date: November 25, 2015
WITH THE END OF 2015
MDGS WILL COME TO THEIR END.
THIS REPORT SHOWS WHERE WE
STAND NOW AFTER 15 YEARS OF THE
INITIAL STEP.

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Millennium Development Goals………………………………………………………………………………..3
Goal 1: Eradicate Extreme Poverty and Hunger................................................................................................ 4
Goal 2: Achieve Universal Primary Education ................................................................................................... 4
Goal 3: Promote Gender Equality and Empower Women.................................................................................5
Goal 4: Reduce Child Mortality .......................................................................................................................... 6
Goal 5: Improve Maternal Health ...................................................................................................................... 6
Goal 6: Combat against HIV/AIDS, Malaria and other Disease..........................................................................7
Goal 7: Ensure Environmental Sustainability..................................................................................................... 8
Goal 8: Global Partnership for Development.................................................................................................... 9
The End is A New Beginning…………………………………………………………………………………..10

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Millennium Development Goal
At the beginning of this millennium, world leaders gathered at the United Nations to shape a broad vision
to fight poverty in its many dimensions. That vision, which was translated into eight Millennium
Development Goals (MDGs), has remained the overarching development framework for the world for the
past 15 years. The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are the eight international development goals
that were established following the Millennium Summit of the United Nations in 2000. Following the
adoption of the United Nations Millennium Declaration, all 189 United Nations member states at the time
(Currently 193), and almost 23 international organizations, committed to help achieve the Millennium
Development Goals by 2015 deadline.
The MDGs were developed out of several commitments set forth in the Millennium Declaration, signed in
September 2000. Those are the eight following goals with 21 targets, and a series of measurable indicators
for each target:
1. Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger.
2. Achieve universal primary education.
3. Promote gender equality and empower women.
4. Reduce child mortality.
5. Improve maternal health.
6. Combat HIV/Malaria and other diseases.
7. Ensure environmental sustainability.
8. Global Partnership for development.

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The first goal of the eight goals was to halve the number
of people living under extreme poverty. This goal was
achieved worldwide in 2010 well ahead of the 2015
deadline.
Since 1990, more than 1 billion people have been lifted
out of extreme poverty. Despite progress, almost
half of the world’s employed people work in
vulnerable conditions.
Bangladesh has made commendable progress in
respect of eradication of poverty and hunger. It has
sustained a GDP growth rate of 6 percent or above
in recent years that has played a positive role in
eradicating poverty. The estimated figures suggest
that the MDG target of halving the population living
below the poverty line (from 56.7 percent to 29.0
percent) has already been achieved by 2012.1
The second goal was to ensure that, by 2015, children
everywhere, boys and girls alike, will be able to
complete a full course of primary schooling. Enrolment
in primary education in developing regions reached 91%
in 2015, up from 83% in 2000.
Even though, in the developing
regions, children in the poorest households are
four times as likely to be out of school as those in
the richest households.
Significant progress has been made in increasing
equitable access in education (NER: 97.3 percent),
reduction of dropouts, improvement in completion
of the cycle, and implementation of a number of
quality enhancement measures in primary
education. Bangladesh has already achieved
1
MDG progress report 2013 – page 15
http://www.bd.undp.org/content/dam/bangladesh/docs/Publications/Pub-2014/MDG%20Report%20Last.pdf

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gender parity in primary and secondary enrolment according to the MDG progress report 2013.2
Eliminating gender disparity in primary and secondary
education, preferably by 2005, and in all levels of
education no later than 2015 was the third goal among
the eight.
In a broad term, educating and encouraging
adolescent girls and boys, their families (1 million in Bangladesh) and their
communities to reduce child marriage, dowry and
other forms of abuse, exploitation and violence
against girls was included in this goal.3
The developing countries as a whole have achieved
the target to eliminate gender disparity in primary,
secondary and tertiary education. But globally,
about three quarters of working-age men
participate in the labor force, compared to half of
working-age women.
Bangladesh has already achieved the targets of
gender parity in primary and secondary education
at the national level. This positive development has occurred due to some specific public interventions
focusing on girl students. Also a
series of programs for ensuring
sustainable development of
women has been taken by the
government. There has been a
sharp increase in the number of
women parliamentarians elected
(20 percent of total seats) in the
last national election. However,
wage employment for women in
Bangladesh is still low. Only one
woman out of every five is
2
MDG Bangladesh progress report 2013 – page 15
3
http://www.unicef.org/bangladesh/overview_4851.htm

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engaged in wage employment in the non-agricultural sector.4
It was proposed to reduce the under-five mortality rate
mortality by two thirds, between 1990 and 2015 as the
goal 4. Though substantial progress in reducing child
mortality has been made, but more children can be
saved from death due to
preventable causes.
The global under-five mortality rate has declined by
more than half, dropping from 90 to 43 deaths per
1,000 live births between 1990 and 2015 and 84
percent of children worldwide received at least one
dose of measles-containing vaccine in 2013. But still
every day in 2015, 16,000 children under five
continue to die, mostly from preventable causes.
Child survival must remain the focus of the post-
2015 development agenda.5
Bangladesh has already met the target of reducing
under-five mortality rate: against the target of achieving 48 per 1,000 live births in 2015, it has already
achieved 44 per 1,000 live births in 20116
& 41 per 1,000 live births in 2012.
The goal is to reduce
the maternal
mortality ratio by
three quarters,
between 1990 and
2015, and achieve
universal access to reproductive health by
2015. Maternal survival has significantly
improved since the adoption of the
MDGs.
4
MDG Bangladesh progress report 2013 – page 16 and 53
5
http://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/mdgoverview/mdg_goals/mdg4/
6
MDG Bangladesh progress report 2013 - page 56

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Since 1990, the maternal mortality ratio has been cut nearly in half, and most
of the reduction has occurred since 2000. More than 71% of births were
assisted by skilled health personnel globally in 2014, which was 59% in 1990.
But a sad information is only 51% of countries have data on maternal cause of
death.7
According to Bangladesh Maternal Mortality Survey (BMMS), maternal
mortality declined from 574 (1990/91) to 194 in 2010, a 60.20% decline in 20
years. The average of this decline from base year has been 3.3% per year, where
it is required to have 3.0% for achieving the goal by 2015.8
Moreover, in order to strengthen primary
healthcare facilities, the government has launched 12,217 community clinics to expand health services to
the grassroots level.
Goal 6 is to have the spread and incidence of HIV/AIDS,
Malaria, and other disease halted by 2015 and begin to
reverse it. This also includes providing universal access to
treatment for HIV/AIDS for all those who need it.
New HIV infections fell by approximately 40 percent
between 2000 and 2013, from an estimated 3.5 million cases to 2.1 million. By
June 2014, 13.6 million people living with HIV were receiving Antiretroviral
therapy (ART) globally; ART averted 7.6 million deaths from AIDS between
1995 and 2013. Between 2000 and 2013,
tuberculosis prevention, diagnosis and treatment
saved 37 million lives9
Bangladesh has performed
well in halting
communicable diseases
under this goal. Available
data show that the
prevalence of HIV/AIDS in
Bangladesh currently is
less than 0.1%. According to
National AIDS/STD
7
http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/maternal.shtml
8
MDG Bangladesh progress report 2013 - page 62
9
http://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/mdgoverview/mdg_goals/mdg6/

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Programs (NASP), proportion of population aged 15-24 years with comprehensive correct knowledge of
HIV/AIDS is 17.70 percent in 2013. 10
There was a significant improvement in the reduction of malarial deaths in the country over the years. The
prevalence of malaria per 100,000 population was 441.5 in 2005, which came down to 202 in 2013. The
death rate associated with TB was 61 per 100,000 populations in 1990. The current status is 45 in 2012 which
shows that the country is on track to achieve the target.10
This is a goal that needs a lot of effort and hard work. It
is basically to integrate the principles of sustainable
development into country policies and programs and
reverse the loss of environmental resources; reduce
biodiversity loss achieving a significant reduction in the
rate of loss by 2010; halve the proportion of the
population without sustainable access to safe
drinking water and basic sanitation by 2015;
and achieve a significant improvement in the
lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers by
2020.
Ozone-depleting substances have been
virtually eliminated, and the ozone layer is
expected to recover by the middle of this
century. Since 1990, 2.1 billion people have
gained access to improved sanitation, and the
proportion of people practicing open
defecation globally has fallen almost by half.
The world has met the target of halving the
proportion of people without access to
improved sources of water, five years ahead of schedule. Between 1990 and
2015, 2.6 billion people gained access to improved drinking water sources, 1.9
million among them has access to piped drinking water. Though slum dwellers
have gained access to improved water sources, the number of people living in
slums are increasing. More than 880 million people are estimated to be living
in slums today, compared to 792 million in 2000 and 689 million in 1990.11
In our country Bangladesh, the goal was to improve standards of sanitation
with safe water and hygiene behavior on a sustainable basis, at least among
10
MDG Bangladesh progress report 2013 - page 17
11
http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/environ.shtml
http://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/mdgoverview/mdg_goals/mdg7/

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30 million people. It also included contributing to government water and sanitation targets: ‘100% access
to safe water by 2011’ and ‘100% access to sanitation facilities by 2013’.
At present there is only 13.20 percent of land in Bangladesh having tree cover with density of 30 percent
and above and the area having tree cover is much lower than the target set for 2015. At present the
proportion of terrestrial and marine areas protected is 1.83 percent which is much less than the target of
5 percent. Data show that without considering the issue of arsenic contamination, 97.9 percent of the
population of Bangladesh is using improved drinking water source; 55.9 percent of population is using
improved sanitation in 2012-2013. However, access to safe water for all is a challenge, as arsenic and salinity
intrusion as a consequence of climate change fall out will exacerbate availability of safe water especially
for the poor.
The last of the goals were about developing further
an open, rule-based, predictable, non-discriminatory
trading and financial system; dealing
comprehensively with the debt problems of
developing countries; and cooperation with
pharmaceutical companies, provide access to
affordable essential drugs in developing countries.
Global reports from 2015 say that official development assistance(ODA)
from developed countries increased by 66
percent in real terms between 2000 and 2014,
reaching $135.2 billion. In 2013, the debt burden of
developing countries was 3.1 per cent, a major
improvement over the 2000 figure of 12.0 per
cent. From 2007 to 2014, on average, generic
medicines were available in 58 per cent of public
health facilities in low-income and lower-middle-
income countries. The number of mobile-cellular
subscriptions has grown almost tenfold in the last
15 years, from 738 million in 2000 to over 7 billion
in 2015.
Internet penetration
has grown from just over 6 per cent of the world’s population in 2000 to 43
per cent in 2015. As a result, 3.2 billion people are linked to a global network of
content and applications.
During the last two decades and more, Bangladesh, on an average, got
US$ 1,672 million ODA per year. The MDGs sectors like education, health, social
welfare, labor, public administration and social infrastructure together with agriculture and rural
development constituted around 48.24 percent of the total ODA outlay.

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The End is a New Beginning
“2015 is a milestone year. We will complete the Millennium Development
Goals. We are forging a bold vision for sustainable development, including
a set of sustainable development goals. And we are aiming for a new,
universal climate agreement.”
— UN Secretary-General BAn Ki-moon
The Millennium Development Goals Report 2015 was published at the beginning of this year. According to
the report, progress on 11 indicators was lagging behind target, progress was on track for 10, and targets
for 12 indicators had been met.
As for Bangladesh, poverty rate declined to 26.2% as of 2013, the planning commission official said.
According to the MDG targets, Bangladesh needed to cut its poverty rate to 29 per cent by 2015.
Bangladesh hit the targets for reducing headcount poverty and the poverty gapratio, reducing the number
of underweight children under five years of age, attaining gender parity in primary and secondary
education, reducing under-five mortality rates, increasing enrolment at primary schools, lowering infant
mortality rates and the maternal mortality ratio, improving immunization coverage and reducing the
incidence of communicable diseases.
The country is on track to hit the 2015 targets for increasing the net enrolment ratio in primary education,
reducing the infant mortality rate, increasing the proportion of one year-old children immunized against

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measles, the maternal mortality rate, the proportion of births attended by skilled health personnel,
reducing HIV prevalence in the population, reducing deaths from tuberculosis (TB) per 100,000 people,
and raising the proportion of people using an improved drinking water source.12
Enormous progress has been made on the MDGs globally, showing the value of a unifying agenda
underpinned by goals and targets. Despite this success, the indignity of poverty has not been ended for all.
Coming to an end for most of the MDGs’ deadline, there has to be some future development planning for
this that must take place in this millennium. For this the UNDP has projected a new set of goals followed
by MDG, called the Sustainable Development Goals or the SDGs which includes a set of 17 Sustainable
Development Goals (SDGs) to end poverty, fight inequality and injustice, and tackle climate change by 2030.
Data collected from MDG reports will greatly help to ensure the success of SDGs. The Sustainable
Development Goals, otherwise known as the Global Goals, and the broader sustainability agenda, go much
further than the MDGs, addressing the root causes of poverty and the universal need for development that
works for all people.
12
http://www.dhakatribune.com/bangladesh/2014/sep/08/bangladesh-misses-major-mdg-targets