The Goals & Objectives of Childaid are aligned strongly with the UN's Millennium Development Goals.

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are the set of internationally agreed upon targets for reducing poverty, hunger, disease, illiteracy, environmental degradation and discrimination against women by 2015.

The Millennium Development Goals are:

Goal 1: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger

Goal 2: Achieve universal primary education

Goal 3: Promote gender equality and empower women

Goal 4: Reduce child mortality

Goal 5: Improve maternal health

Goal 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases

Goal 7: Ensure environmental sustainability

Goal 8: Develop a Global Partnership for Development

Childaid believes strongly in all the MDG's. However, Childaid's Mission implies that our work is focused on Goals 1, 2,4,5 & 6.

By aligning our development initiatives with the MDG's we can ensure that we make best use of our donors money in addressing the real needs of the developing world in a way consistent with international best-practise.

If the world achieves the MDGs, more than 500 million people will be lifted out of poverty. A further 250 million will no longer suffer from hunger. 30 million children and two million mothers who might reasonably have been expected to die will be saved.

The world has made significant progress in achieving many of the Goals. Between 1990 and 2002 average overall incomes increased by approximately 21 percent. The number of people in extreme poverty declined by an estimated 130 million!. Child mortality rates fell from 103 deaths per 1,000 live births a year to 88. Life expectancy rose from 63 years to nearly 65 years. An additional 8 percent of the developing world's people received access to water. And an additional 15 percent acquired access to improved sanitation services.

Sub-Saharan Africa is the epicentre of crisis, with continuing food insecurity, a rise of extreme poverty, stunningly high child and maternal mortality, and large numbers of people living in slums, and a widespread shortfall for most of the MDGs.

To read more about the Millennium Development Goals see: www.unmillenniumproject.org/index.htm