Assessment of the progress toward the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) at the halfway point in 2008 showed major shortfalls in several of them. At high-level meetings held during the year, world leaders noted the substantial progress that had been made toward some of the goals, especially poverty reduction, but expressed grave concern at the prospect that most of the other goals, in particular the human development goals, would not be achieved if past trends continued. At the UN General Assembly’s High-Level Event on the MDGs held in September 2008, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon noted that “we face nothing less than a development emergency,” and the meeting resulted in a call to action to scale up development efforts and put the world back on track to achieve the MDGs.1 A similar assessment was echoed in the report of the MDG Africa Steering Group comprising all major multilateral development organizations that focus on the region facing the most serious shortfalls.2 Since then, the global financial crisis, coming on the heels of the food and fuel crises, threatens further setbacks, making the achievement of the goals still more challenging and the need for stronger action still more urgent.3
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