Economist: Meeting Targets - Millennium Development Goals

From The Economist Daily Chart today:

September 22nd and world leaders wrap up a three-day UN-sponsored summit in New York to discuss progress towards the Millennium Development Goals. These are broad development targets that were set at a similar meeting ten years ago. Most of the goals involved reductions by 2015 from 1990 levels, and there has indeed been progress towards them, at least on a global scale. But what happens globally can be dominated by what happens in one or two countries. For example, in 1990, 62% of the world’s poor people lived in just two countries, China and India. A dramatic fall in China’s poverty rate, from 60% to 16%, has therefore had a big impact on global poverty, which seems set to meet its 2015 target. But that is small comfort to the poor in many other countries where poverty has barely budged. Goals such as those involving primary enrolment and reductions in child mortality are unlikely to be met, though some, such as access to clean drinking water, are likely to be exceeded.