UN Millennium Development Library: Investing in Development: A Practical Plan to Achieve the Millennium Development Goals

The Millennium Development Goals, adopted at the UN Millennium Summit in 2000, are the world's targets for dramatically reducing extreme poverty in its many dimensions by 2015 income poverty, hunger, disease, exclusion, lack of infrastructure and shelteri? while promoting gender equality, education, health and environmental sustainability. These bold goals can be met in all parts of the world if nations follow through on their commitments to work together to meet them. Achieving the Millennium Development Goals offers the prospect of a more secure, just, and prosperous world for all. The UN Millennium Project was commissioned by United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan to develop a practical plan of action to meet the Millennium Development Goals. As an independent advisory body directed by Professor Jeffrey D. Sachs, the UN Millennium Project submitted its recommendations to the UN Secretary General in January 2005. i? The core of the UN Millennium Project's work has been carried out by 10 thematic Task Forces comprising more than 250 experts from around the world, including scientists, development practitioners, parliamentarians, policymakers, and representatives from civil society, UN agencies, the World Bank, the IMF, and the private sector. Investing in Development: A Practical Plan to Achieve the Millennium Development Goals brings together the core recommendations of the UN Millennium Project. By outlining practical strategies and approaches to financing the,, the report presents an operational framework that will allow even the poorest countries to achieve the Millennium Development Goals by 2015.

Table of Contents:
Part I: Why the Goals are important and why we're falling short * The fulcrum of international development policy * The means to a productive life * A linchpin to global security * Where we stand with only a decade to go * Why progress is so mixed * Four reasons for shortfalls in achieving the Goals * Part II: Country-level processes to achieve the Goals * Designing a national strategy to achieve the Goals * Working back from the 2015 targets and timelines * Priority public investments to empower poor people * The key elements for rapid scale-up * Good governance to achieve the Goals * Part III: Recommendations for the international system to support country-level processes * Fixing the aid system * Key measures to improve aid delivery * A breakthrough in global trade * Regional and global public goods * Getting started in 2005: launching a decade of bold ambition * Part IV: The costs and benefits of achieving the Millennium Development Goals * Expanding the financial envelope to achieve the Goals * The benefits: the case for a decade of bold ambition *

About the Author :
Jeffrey D. Sachs is Project Director of the UN Millennium Project and its Task Forces, which comprise more than 250 experts from around the world, including scientists, development practitioners, parliamentarians, policy-makers and representatives from civil society, UN agencies, the World Bank, the IMF and the private sector