The millennium development goals

On a beautiful summer's day in July 2005 many of us turned on the television or were lucky enough to have tickets to one of the concerts organised as part of Live 8. It was spectacular: three billion people around the world watched 10 concerts running simultaneously in different parts of the world, to raise awareness of the poverty still facing African countries; to pressure politicians to erase third world debt; and to honour the millennium development goals (box).

The 1990s had seen an increase in poverty in poor countries, along with a big increase in HIV/AIDS and other preventable diseases. It seemed that the gap between rich and poor countries was widening, and the United Nations realised that something had to be done. Many people saw the approach of a new millennium as an opportunity to work together and to work with targets to make meaningful changes that would serve as a vision of how everyone in the world should live in the 21st century. This was the main aim of the United Nations millennium summit.

The summit ran 6-8 September 2000, and 152 head of states and governments assembled at the UN headquarters in New York city. Western politicians, such as Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, and Vladimir Putin, mixed with leaders from poor countries-something previously unseen. At the time it was the largest ever gathering of world leaders, surpassed …