Goals

Seventh goal

ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY

INTRODUCTION

Reducing poverty and achieving sustained development must be done in conjunction with a healthy planet. The Millennium Goals recognize that environmental sustainability is part of global economic and social well-being.

Unfortunately exploitation of natural resources such as forests, land, water, and fisheries-often by the powerful few-have caused alarming changes in our natural world in recent decades, often harming the most vulnerable people in the world who depend on natural resources for their livelihood.

THE TARGETS

Goal 7 of the Millennium Development Goals sets out by the year 2015 to:

• Integrate the principles of sustainable development into country policies and programmes and reverse the loss of environmental resources.
• Reduce biodiversity loss, achieving, by 2010, a significant reduction in the rate of loss.
• Halve, by 2015, the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation
• By 2020, to have achieved a significant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers.

(source: UN Millennium Campaign website www.endpoverty2015.org)

DID YOU KNOW?

In our world today around 2.5 billion people do not have access to improved sanitation and some 1.2 billion people do not have access to an improved source of water. 
(Source: Why do the Millennium Development Goals matter? Brochure)