The Millennium Development Goals report 2010

This report presents data on progress towards the Millennium Development Goals [MDGs] for the world as a whole and for various country groupings. These are classified as ‘developing’ regions, the transition economies of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) in Asia and Europe, and the ‘developed’ regions. The developing regions are further broken down into subregions. These regional groupings are based on United Nations geographical divisions, with some modifications necessary to create, to the extent possible, groups of countries for which a meaningful analysis can be carried out. Progress towards the eight Millennium Development Goals is measured through 21 targets and 60 official indicators. This report presents an accounting to date of how far the world has come in meeting the goals using data available as of May 2010. Most of the MDGs targets have a deadline of 2015, and 1990 is the baseline against which progress is gauged. When relevant and available, data for 2000 are also presented, to describe changes since the Millennium Declaration was signed. Country data are aggregated at the subregional and regional levels to show overall advances over time. Although the aggregate figures are a convenient way to track progress, the situation of individual countries within a given region may vary significantly from regional averages. [authors abstract]