The eight Millennium Development Goals, which set the bar for Jeffrey Sachs’ Millennium Villages and indirectly for the Notre Dame Millennium Development Initiative, were aggressive human development targets established at the United Nations’ Millennium Summit in September 2000. They call on member states to work toward the following by 2015:
- Reduce by half the number of people suffering from hunger and living in “extreme poverty"—i.e., on less than a dollar a day
- Achieve universal primary education
- Promote gender equality in education
- Reduce the child mortality rate
- Improve maternal health
- Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other major diseases
- Ensure environmental sustainability with particular regard to measures such as access to safe drinking water
- Develop a global partnership for development
Notre Dame’s commitment to global human development is already evident in many of its academic centers, such as the Center for Social Concerns and the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies; in interdisciplinary study programs like the new Global Linkages of Biology, the Environment and Society (GLOBES) program; and in such student groups as the ND Millennium Development Goals Task Force.
To read more about the NDMDI, check out “Father John in Uganda,” an online journal of the trip Father Jenkins and other Notre Dame representatives took in January at president.nd.edu/activities-and-initiatives/father-john-in-uganda/.