At the Millennium Summit in 2000, the UN agreed to adopt a list of eight goals of international development that should be achieved by 2015 in order to reduce extreme poverty. Meeting these Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) is one of the main objectives of EU development policy.
While evidence shows that global progress over the past ten years has been relatively good for the goals on poverty, HIV/AIDS, malaria, education and gender, many countries are still off-track on some MDG5 and regional trends indicate that Sub-Saharan African countries in particular lag much behind other regions.
The European Union is allocating €700 million to proposals by those countries which aim at accelerating progress on the most off-track MDGs: eradicating hunger, improving maternal health, curbing child mortality and improving access to water and sanitation. All selected proposals are results-oriented, with clear and measurable indicators to demonstrate the benefits of additional funding. The remaining €300 million will be provided as a reward to well-performing countries as part of the 10th EDF Mid-term Reviews.
Please find the official Commission communication with a table presenting the indicative allocations and the targeted MDGs for each of the selected proposals at: http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=MEMO/11/930
