A new global consensus has emerged that stresses that the objective of development is to end global poverty. This consensus is accompanied by a bold new set of targets--global poverty to be halved by 2015, along with universal primary education, the removal of gender disparities in schooling, universal access to reproductive health care, specific reductions in infant, child and maternal mortality rates, and a reversal in the loss of environmental resources. These 'International Development Targets' were first adopted by the OECD in 1996, and have been succeeded by the yet more widely endorsed 'Millennium Development Goals' following from the UN Millennium Summit in September 2000.
The aim of this book is to provide a critical appraisal of these targets, and the progress so far towards meeting them. The book consists of six introductory chapters on how and why the International Development Targets and Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) have become incorporated into development policy, and what their overall value is. Each chapter in the second part analyzes whether current trends suggest the target can be reached. Contributors assess the main constraints that exist to achieving each of these targets and the resulting implications for policy.