Millennium Development Goals

Achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) – a set of targets to end severe poverty by 2015 and agreed to by 191 nations – demands global cooperation and innovation.  EngenderHealth, with its partners across 25 countries, is proud to be contributing to the achievement of each of the eight goals.

MDG1:  Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
When women and men have access to family planning, they can expand their opportunities and break the cycle of poverty in rural communities. Making motherhood safer, so that all children have the best possible start in life, is also essential to eradicating extreme poverty and hunger.

MDG2:  Achieve universal primary education
In poor, rural communities, where families may not have enough money to send all of their children to school, boys receive priority when it’s time to pay school fees.  By partnering with youth, indigenous girls in the remote Mayan Highlands of Guatemala have a second chance to get an education.

MDG3:  Promote gender equality and empower women
Our Men As Partners® program, the first of its kind, mobilizes men to take an active stand for gender equality, support their partners, and inspires men to advocate for HIV prevention and to end violence against women.

MDG4:  Reduce child mortality
Smaller families are healthier families – that has long been the mantra of supporters of family planning and child health alike.  By helping women and men decide when to have children, and helping to ensure that mothers can give birth safely, children have the chance to be healthier and happier.  We’re also helping prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV.

MDG5:  Improve maternal health
From helping women plan their families, to improving comprehensive and emergency obstetric care, helping men be supportive partners, and empowering girls to delay pregnancy, to providing care for women living with HIV, everything EngenderHealth does contributes to better maternal health.

MDG6:  Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases
Our HIV and AIDS program is focused on preventing HIV transmission, as well as improving the quality of care and treatment available to people living with HIV.  That means not only increasing access to antiretroviral therapy, but also to other reproductive health services such as family planning.  In Kenya, our APHIA Nyanza program is expanding comprehensive community health care that includes malaria prevention and treatment.

MDG7:  Ensure environmental sustainability
When populations grow more rapidly than a country’s infrastructure can support, natural resources get strained and may suffer.  Achieving a balance between people and their environment is a challenge facing many developing countries, and access to family planning is an important part of the response.

MDG8:  Develop a global partnership for development
Success and progress can only be achieved through partnerships with governments, the private sector, and individuals across the world. Together, we have reached more than 100 million people to help them realize a better life.