In September 2000, world leaders adopted the UN Millennium Declaration, committing their nations to a new global partnership to reduce extreme poverty and expand the choices of the poor. A set of timebound and measurable goals and targets for combating poverty, hunger, disease, illiteracy, environmental degradation and discrimination against women - the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) - were placed at the heart of the global development agenda.

In 2005, the World Summit reaffirmed the centrality of the MDGs to the international development agenda. Nations, both developing and donor alike, made a strong and unambiguous commitment to achieve the Goals by 2015. Specific commitments by the international community included an additional $50 billion a year by 2010 for fighting poverty (G8 Summit in Gleneagles) and a commitment by all developing countries to adopt national plans for achieving the Goals. More recently at the 2008 High Level MDGE vent, governments committed an additional $16 billion to support specific initiatives.

Still, more than one billion people – one-sixth of the world's population – live in extreme poverty and lack the safe water, proper nutrition, health care and social services needed for a healthy life in its most basic form. In many of the poorest countries, life expectancy is half of what it is in the high-income world – 40 years instead of 80 years. The consequences of this level of poverty reach far beyond the afflicted societies. Poverty and inequality are important causes of violent conflict, civil war and state failures. A world with extreme poverty is a world of insecurity.

Further, we are now beyond the mid-point between the adoption of the Goals and the target date of 2015. Important progress has been made and there are many notable successes that offer encouragement. In all but two regions, primary school enrolment is at least 90 percent; about 80 percent of children in developing countries now receive a measles vaccine and 1.6 billion people have gained access to safe drinking water since 1990. But, despite significant achievements towards some targets, much more needs to be done. Numerous Goals and targets are likely to be missed without additional, strengthened or corrective actions that are urgently needed. At the current rate of progress, the proportion of people living on less than a dollar a day is unlikely to be reduced by half in Sub-Saharan Africa by 2015; a quarter of all children in developing countries are still undernourished, and 100 countries will fail to achieve gender parity in both primary and secondary school enrolment.

Achieving the MDGs is now all the more challenging because the development environment is more threatened now than it has been at any time in the recent past. A global economic slowdown, a food security crisis of uncertain magnitude and duration, the development impact of climate change, all directly affect efforts to reduce poverty and to attain the MDGs more broadly. And, for many developing countries, there is a risk that important advances made can quickly unravel.

At this juncture then, it is time not only to take stock but also to take note. As the world prepares to mark 2010 with a summit focused on reinvigorating international attention on the MDGs, and with less than six years left to 2015, no effort should be spared to build the momentum needed to realize the human development outcomes called for by the Millennium Declaration and embodied in the MDGs.

In December 2001, the UN Secretary-General requested that the UNDP Administrator, in his capacity as the Chair of the UN Development Group, to act as campaign manager and scorekeeper for the MDGs within the United Nations system. And over the past eight years, at every stage, the United Nations system has aligned itself behind national governments in support of reaching the MDGs by 2015. This commitment of the organization has been reflected in the UNDP Multi-Year Funding Frameworks and the Strategic Plan (2008-2011), which highlights the “urgent need for additional efforts by the international community to make the achievement of the MDGs a reality by 2015 for all developing countries, but particularly for the least-developed, land-locked developing countries and small-island developing states”.

UNDP support for the MDGs has operated at global, regional and country levels and the focus of support has evolved, reflecting a deeper, wider and more active engagement with the MDGs over time. From 2001 to 2005, much of UNDP support centered on its role as scorekeeper and champion of the MDG agenda. Since 2005, programmatic support has widened to include, among other initiatives:

• MDG-Based Planning:MDG-based diagnostics, reporting and monitoring – including MDG needs assessments and poverty-consistent macroeconomic and fiscal frameworks – have been supported with the objective of widening policy options and choices to strengthen national capacities to achieve the MDGs;
• Implementation ofMDG-Focused Initiatives: These initiatives span a number of MDGa reas and programmes, including HIV mitigation, water governance, energy access for the poor and conditional cash transfers that function as mechanisms for reducing hunger and malnutrition. Such efforts have been tailored to respond to a range of development challenges, and are often unique to country situations and local development priorities;
• MDG Advocacy: At global, regional and country levels, UNDP has sought to build support for the MDGage nda through advocacy campaigns, and has worked with partners to mobilize the commitments and capabilities of broad segments of society to build awareness of the Goals.

In light of a rapidly changing development menvironment and given a limited time frame for achieving the MDGa genda, UNDP initiated a forward looking MDGr eview to assess where emphasis should be placed over the next several years in order to better support partners and their efforts to meet the Millennium Development Goals. The principal purpose of this review is to assess the factors that shape MDGpr ogress in a country, to identify the bottlenecks and constraints that have slowed this progress, and to assess how UNDP can support its development partners in their efforts to realize these basic and essential development aspirations. While it is clear that UNDP and the broader UN system cannot carry the full weight of alleviating many of these bottlenecks, it is also true that achieving MDGb reakthroughs over the next six years will require that support from all development partners – and UNDP in particular – be much more strategic and effective.

This Report builds on the findings of 30 country level MDGa ssessments conducted from March to May 2009 (Table 1) and documents the key findings of these forward looking reviews. Wide-ranging field consultations with government counterparts, civil society and development partners were held to identify why progress towards MDGa chievements has been so uneven, what is needed for progress to be accelerated and how development partners such as UNDP can best support countries to achieve these important development outcomes (Annex 1).

Information not specifically cited otherwise in this report are from the MDGCou ntry Assessments.

The assessments support the findings of earlier studies, discussed in this report, which indicate that national progress on the MDGs is fundamentally shaped by a country’s position in the global economy, by its own policies – whether they are congruent with the pursuit of broad-based, inclusive growth – and by sector programmes as they relate to achievement of the different Goals.MDG progress is also linked to good governance practices and institutional capacities, which are essential to create the enabling environment necessary for implementing needed policies and programmes and for securing MDGa chievements. Also emerging as a key factor is whether adequate fiscal resources are available – including both domestic and Overseas Development Assistance (ODA) – and whether they are being channeled effectively in support of these development priorities.

It is clear then that approaching 2015, accelerated progress towards MDGac hievements will depend on identifying and unlocking the constraints and bottlenecks in each of these areas. And they are all important. Policies without effective institutions to implement them are meaningless. Policies and institutions without resources are ineffective. The enormous diversity among countries, even within the same region, with respect to their specific conditions, institutions and governance structures implies that accelerated progress on the MDGs will depend on the unique conditions, opportunities and constraints of each country. No single blueprint will do.

This Report goes beyond just a diagnostics of country specific constraints and bottlenecks. It also highlights those policies, sector programmes, and democratic governance practices that have had demonstrable impacts on improving the capabilities and wellbeing of the poor. And it identifies key areas where capacity strengthening and policy coherence is required if progress towards MDGa chievements is to be accelerated.

Finally, as recent global upheavals have shown so starkly, gains can always be reversed. Making progress towards MDGac hievements does not imply that it will always be sustained. Emerging development challenges bring new risks, such as climate change, which can have a direct impact on agricultural patterns and on water and land resources. Measures to accelerate progress need to be accompanied by measures to protect gains already realized. In the end,MDGa chievements will only be meaningful if they are sustained in the world beyond 2015 and if the human development objectives that they embody are realized in those countries and for those people for whom the Millennium Declaration was intended.

The Report is organized as follows:

Chapter one examines national commitment to the MDGs and how they have been reflected in the national development agendas of countries. It identifies how the process of tailoring MDGtarge ts to reflect national conditions, challenges and priorities is an important first step towards national ownership of the MDGage nda – and that if there is one overriding lesson guiding the achievement of these development goals and their sustainability, it is the importance of national ownership.

Chapter two argues that the enormous diversity among countries with respect to MDGa chievements is explained at least in part by domestic conditions, as well as by the policy choices made by governments. However, in an increasingly interdependent world, domestic policy choices are themselves circumscribed by and subject to changes in the global system of trade and finance.

Chapter three underscores the importance of democratic governance practices in translating developmental objectives into concrete and tangible realities for the poor. The chapter identifies governance and institutional practices that have supported accelerated progress towards MDG achievements, but cautions that unless backed by adequate functional capacities, democratic governance practices alone will unlikely lead to rapid or enduring development gains.

Chapter four focuses specifically on the challenges faced by crisis and post-conflict countries as they attempt to address the MDGs. It highlights the fact that working towards the MDGs can be compatible with pursuing the pressing challenges of reconstruction, rehabilitation and resettlement. In fact, the idea of actively seeking to reach specified targets can be a powerful and mobilizing force for post-conflict recovery – as long as the design of MDGpr ogrammes does no harm in terms of conflict risk.

Chapter five examines the issue of securing and prioritizing finance for MDGin vestments. Not only are available finances insufficient for scaling up public expenditures, they are not necessarily directed in ways that prioritize the investments needed for accelerated MDGpr ogress.The chapter also notes that it is essential to consider how domestic sources of finance, in addition to ODA, can be enhanced and mobilized to prioritize and finance MDGa chievements.

Chapter six summarizes the evidence and issues discussed in the preceding chapters and recommends how UNDP can best support countries to make accelerated progress towards achieving the MDGs. Going forward, it suggests that UNDP galvanize its energies and resources to support countries to:

• Catalyze Partnerships for Synchronized National Action
• Employ Democratic Governance Practices to Improve Implementation Deficits
• Bolster and Champion Policy Options and Coherence in Support of MDGBr eakthroughs
• Mobilize and Prioritize Funding for MDGIn vestments