The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) set up a framework for global efforts to improve people's lives worldwide by addressing extreme poverty in its many forms and promoting gender equality and environmental sustainability.

At the threshold of the 2015 deadline, many achievements can be reported: global poverty has been halved ahead of schedule, 90% of children in developing regions attend primary education, and remarkable improvement has been witnessed in the fight against malaria and tuberculosis. Still, the majority of the eight goals are not met, and we are facing a set of growing inequalities and new challenges: poverty and abuse of human rights are still pervasive, 58 million children are out of school, and climate change, long lasting conflicts, epidemics and new forms of terrorism are threatening to wipe out much of the progress made.