IFAD and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)

Global poverty is concentrated in the rural areas of developing countries, where almost one billion people live in extreme poverty and hunger. The vast majority depend on agriculture and related activities to survive. Greater investment in agricultural and rural development is crucial if we are to achieve the Millennium Development Goal.

IFAD's overarching goal is that rural women and men in developing countries are empowered to achieve higher incomes and improved food security at the household level. In this way it will contribute to the achievement of Millennium Development Goal number 1: the eradication of extreme poverty.

The MDGs represent a global partnership that has grown from the commitments and targets established at the world summits of the 1990s. Responding to the world's main development challenges and to the calls of civil society, the MDGs promote poverty reduction, education, maternal health, gender equality, and aim at combating child mortality, AIDS and other diseases.

Set for the year 2015, the MDGs are an agreed set of goals that can be achieved if all actors work together and do their part. Poor countries have pledged to govern better, and invest in their people through health care and education. Rich countries have pledged to support them, through aid, debt relief, and fairer trade.

The 8 MDGs break down into 18 quantifiable targets that are measured by 48 indicators.