John W. McArthur, Jeffrey D. Sachs, Guido SchmidtTraub Amir Attaran’s Policy Forum [1] raises important points on the poor quality of data for some indicators used to measure progress on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), but, sadly, uses these fi ndings to draw the wrong conclusions. The evidence he presents on a small number of indicators is partial, and does not justify his conclusion ...

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have emerged as a global pledge to 'leave no one behind'. Under SDG 3, 'Ensure healthy lives and promote wellbeing for all', target 3.3 extends the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) beyond HIV, TB and malaria to 'end the epidemic' of neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) by 2030. Other targets are also relevant to NTDs, especially 3.8 (Universal Health Co...

Global development goals have become increasingly used by the United Nations and the international community to promote priority global objectives. The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are the most prominent example of such goals, but many others have been set since the 1960s. Despite their prominence and proliferation, little has been written about the concept of global goals as a policy to...

Increasing cases of birth defects has been a worldwide problem for decades. According to the available reports, most of the birth defects were induced by exogenous factors including environmental, chemical or physical factors. As most of these problems are life-threatening and might cause lifelong disability, the concern on reducing the incidences of birth defects has been proportionally increa...

BACKGROUND The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were 'top-down' goals formulated by policy elites drawing from targets within United Nations (UN) summits and conferences in the 1990s. Contemporary processes shaping the new post-2015 development agenda are more collaborative and participatory, markedly different to the pre-MDG era. This study examines what would the outcome be if a methodolog...

We analysed the performance of Ethiopia in achieving the health-related millennium development goals (MDGs) with the aim of acquiring lessons for the sustainable development goals (SDGs). Ethiopia achieved most of the health MDGs: a 67% reduction in under-five mortality, a 71% decline in maternal mortality ratio, a 90% decline in new HIV infections, a decrease in malaria-related deaths by 73% a...

D iscussion and analysis on international comparison using Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) have been somewhat neglected in recent years. With recent shifts in economic growth and constantly changing poverty dynamics, as well as forthcoming major evaluations of progress on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), it is an opportune time to revive the debate. This paper examines what PPP tries to d...

The United Nations (UN) is negotiating the Post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the predecessors of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). There is now an opportunity to include one of the disease categories with the greatest impact on the global burden of disease (GBD), namely mental illness. This letter presents the case for the inclusion of mental health within the SDGs, drawn f...

Since the year 2000, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) have anchored efforts to combat global poverty. As we near 2015, this article assesses ICTs’ role in reaching the goals, with an emphasis on urban poverty. Over the lifespan of the MDGs, debate about ICTs and development has grown. At one pole of this debate are those who see ICTs as enabling rapid growth and citizen empowerment; at t...