UN launches Millennium Development Goals Minitor

The MDG Monitor is designed as a one-stop-shop for information on progress towards the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), globally and at the country level. It is intended as a tool for policymakers, development practitioners, journalists, students and others interested in learning about the Goals and tracking progress toward them.

The MDG Monitor has been created by the UN Development Programme in partnership with the Statistics Division of the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA), Relief Web of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF). Funding and in-kind support were provided by Google and Cisco.

The MDG Monitor will be continually updated as new data becomes available. Subsequent versions of the tool will also be available in multiple languages. The principal country-level data is currently available in Google Earth accessible via the MDG Monitor home page of http://www.mdgmonitor.org.

About the MDGs
In September 2000, the largest-ever gathering of world leaders ushered in the new millennium by adopting the Millennium Declaration. The Declaration, endorsed by 189 countries, was then translated into a roadmap setting out goals to be reached by 2015.

The eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) build on agreements made at United Nations conferences in the 1990s and represent commitments by all countries to reduce poverty and hunger, and to tackle ill-health, gender inequality, lack of education, lack of access to clean water and environmental degradation.

The MDGs are framed as a compact, which recognizes both the efforts that must be undertaken by developing countries, and the contribution that developed countries can make through trade, development assistance, debt relief, access to essential medicines and technology transfer.