Millennium Promise

In September of 2000, 189 UN member states came together under the leadership of UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to commit their nations to a new global partnership for reducing extreme poverty worldwide by 2015.

The result of this meeting was the adoption of the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), a set of quantified objectives for addressing extreme poverty and its many root causes. The MDGs target income poverty, hunger, disease, and exclusion, while promoting gender equality, education, and environmental sustainability.

We will have time to reach the Millennium Development Goals—worldwide and in most, or even all, individual countries—but only if we break with business as usual.

KOFI ANNAN, UN SECRETARY-GENERAL (1997-2006)

In 2002, world leaders signed the Monterrey Consensus, committing to support achievement of the Goals by contributing 0.7% of GNP (gross national product) to official development assistance. G8 leaders again pledged their commitment in 2005 at the Gleneagles Summit, agreeing to double aid to Africa by 2010 en route to larger increases by 2015.

Five years after the Goals were established, an inspired group of people began to see it was time for a movement to help mobilize the global community to fulfill these promises.