The Millennium Development Goals

Habitat for Humanity joins other organizations and nations around the world in supporting the Millennium Development Goals.

These eight goals were developed during the 2000 U.N. Millennium Summit in the hope of ending extreme worldwide poverty by the year 2015. The Goals were made in agreement between major financial institutions and members of the World Trade Organization. Additionally, developed countries agreed to provide resources while developing countries agreed to improve policies and hold citizens accountable.

To ensure that The Goals are ultimately accomplished, regular evaluations are made by Millennium Goals committees, the United Nations General Assembly and civil society organizations.


By 2015, we hope to:
Goal 1: Reduce by half the proportion of people living on less than a dollar a day and the proportion of people who suffer from hunger.

Goal 2: Ensure that all boys and girls complete a full course of primary schooling.

Goal 3: Eliminate gender disparity at all levels.

Goal 4: Reduce by two-thirds the mortality rate among children under 5.

Goal 5: Reduce by three-quarters the maternal mortality rate.

Goal 6: Halt and begin to reverse the spread of AIDS, the incidence of malaria and other major diseases.

Goal 7: Integrate sustainable development principals into country policies and programs and reverse the loss of environmental resources. Reduce by half the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water.

Goal 8: Further develop an open trading and financial system that is rule-based, predictable and non-discriminatory. Address the least developed countries’ special needs. Deal comprehensively with developing countries’ debt problems through national and international measures to make debt sustainable in the long term.

By 2020, we hope to:
Goal 7: Achieve significant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers


Why do we support the Millennium Development Goals?
We believe that every man, woman and child deserves simple, decent shelter. Habitat’s work is primarily related to Goal 7, which aims to achieve significant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers by 2020. However, several of our ministry’s programs directly impact all eight Millennium Development Goals and their planned growth throughout the world.

How do we support the Millennium Development Goals?
We have developed programs focused on community development, housing finance, disaster response, enterprise development and financial literacy. For examples of Habitat’s work toward the Millennium Development Goals, visit “30 Years of Building Hope and Homes”.

Additionally, we support the Millennium Development Goals with membership in the ONE Campaign. The ONE Campaign encourages the U.S. government to allocate 1 percent of the federal budget to poverty-focused development assistance.

Learn more.
You can find more information at www.un.org/millenniumgoals.