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MDG : Bangladesh : Maternal health : Bangladeshi child  among women
Despite progress, the 2015 deadline for reducing maternal mortality by 75% is unlikely to be met in Africa and much of Asia. Photograph: Munir Uz Zaman/AFP/Getty Images
Despite progress, the 2015 deadline for reducing maternal mortality by 75% is unlikely to be met in Africa and much of Asia. Photograph: Munir Uz Zaman/AFP/Getty Images

Sustainable development goals take shape as UN party narrows focus

This article is more than 9 years old
Number of proposed goals reduced from 19 to 16 as UN working group merges target areas ahead of 2015 deadline

The UN working group devising the sustainable development goals (SDGs) has pared down its list of proposed target areas from 19 to 16, raising hopes of a more concise framework for challenges such as eradicating poverty, ensuring equality and tackling climate change.

The SDGs, which will supersede the millennium development goals (MDGs) when they expire next year, will be established at a UN summit in September 2015.

The latest areas of focus (pdf) range from poverty eradication, building shared prosperity and promoting equality to climate change, conservation and the sustainable use of marine resources, oceans and seas.

The working group has reduced the number of areas by eliding some of the earlier categories, bringing together poverty eradication and equality as well as economic growth, employment and infrastructure.

The new goals will target the eradication of extreme poverty – defined as the number of people living on less than $1.25 a day – by 2030, and aim to ensure equality of economic opportunity for all women and men.

On health, the group suggests a target of reducing the maternal mortality ratio to less than 40 per 100,000 by 2030, and ending the epidemics of HIV and Aids, tuberculosis, malaria and neglected tropical diseases by the same date.

Following the group's May meeting, climate change proposals include taking "urgent and significant action" to mitigate the effects of global warming, agreeing a target based on the outcome of the 2015 UN climate change conference in Paris, and building "resilience and adaptive capacity to climate-induced hazards in all vulnerable countries".

On Monday, the European commission called on the world to redouble its efforts to end extreme poverty, arguing that both the technology and resources exist to achieve that goal in the next few decades. "There is no excuse for us failing to do so, and avoiding it must be our stated commitment," said European development commissioner Andris Piebalgs.

"This can only be done through growth and development which is sustainable. We need to find solutions that truly balance economic, social and environmental objectives. And we need to bring together governments, but also civil society, private sector and citizens to set up a global framework that will ensure a decent life for all."

The European environment commissioner, Janez Potočnik, said a new framework was needed "to rally the international community to tackle the intertwined challenges of eliminating poverty [and] improving wellbeing while ensuring that progress is sustainable within planetary boundaries".

The eight MDGs aim to eradicate hunger and extreme poverty; achieve universal primary education; promote gender equality and empower women; reduce child mortality; improve maternal health; combat HIV, Aids, malaria and other diseases; ensure environmental sustainability; and develop a global partnership for development.

Although significant progress has been made in tackling poverty, the goal of reducing maternal mortality by three-quarters is unlikely to be met in Africa and much of Asia, while the MDG to reduce the mortality of children aged under-five by two-thirds is unlikely to be achieved in sub-Saharan Africa, southern Asia and Oceania.

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