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Seven years on and halfway towards 2015 -- the deadline set for the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals -- success is still possible. The MDGs, which set quantitative benchmarks to halve extreme poverty in all its forms, are achievable if countries implement national development strategies and receive adequate support from the international community.

The annual progress report of the United Nations on the MDGs, released in June 2007, shows that remarkable progress has been made even in regions where the challenges are greatest. These accomplishments testify to the unprecedented degree of commitment by developing countries and their development partners to the Millennium Declaration, as well as to some success in building the global partnership embodied in the Declaration.

Based on the estimates produced by the World Bank in 2007, the number of people living on less than one dollar a day appears to have fallen from 1.25 billion in 1990 to some 980 million in 2004. Even in sub-Saharan Africa, the earlier relentless increase in the number of the poor appears to have been halted and their proportion has begun to decline, from 46 to 41 per cent of the population. The share of children attending primary school increased from 80 per cent in 1991 to 88 per cent in 2005. Child mortality -- an age-old scourge of humanity -- has also declined, thanks to effective and inexpensive interventions against measles, malaria, diarrhoea and other causes of child deaths.

The commonly-held view that sub-Saharan Africa remains afflicted by war and corrupt Governments, making development impossible, is a misconception. Tremendous progress has been made in improving economic policies and fighting corruption. Many African countries are leading the way in developing national programmes that have yielded big results in a short time. For example, agricultural productivity has been dramatically raised in Malawi; more children are going to primary schools in Ghana, Kenya, the United Republic of Tanzania and Uganda; malaria is being brought under control in Niger, Togo and Zambia; land is being reforested on a large scale in Niger; and Senegal is on track to halving the proportion of people without access to clean water and sanitation.

These successes demonstrate that the MDGs can be achieved even in very poor countries, when strong government commitment and good strategies are backed up with adequate financing from donors. It is now time to take these successes to scale by supporting government leadership in Africa and other parts of the world still afflicted by severe poverty. These targets are not ambitious, but aim to ensure the fulfilment of basic needs and human rights. If we fail, the consequences will be devastating: 30 million more malnourished children by 2015; 10 million children dying each year of easily preventable causes; millions of HIV-infected people dying because of lack of access to drugs that are easily available in rich countries; over 70 million children without an education; and 600 million people without basic sanitation.

Shortfalls are most severe is sub-Saharan Africa, but even regions that have made substantial progress, including parts of Asia, face challenges in such areas as health and environmental sustainability. More generally, the lack of employment opportunities for young people, gender inequalities, rapid and unplanned urbanization, deforestation, increasing water scarcity and high HIV-prevalence are pervasive obstacles. In addition, insecurity and instability in conflict and post-conflict countries make long-term development efforts extremely difficult. In turn, failure to achieve the MDGs can further heighten the risk of instability and conflict. Yet, in spite of a consensus that development and security are mutually dependent, international efforts all too often treat them as independent from one another.

For countries to be able to see progress, disparities across different groups of the population will have to be addressed. Often, those living in rural areas, children, women with no formal education or the poorest households, do not make enough progress to meet the targets. This is particularly evident in the lack of access to health services and education. In order to achieve the MDGs, countries will need to mobilize additional resources and target public investments that benefit the poor. With guidance from the United Nations, many developing countries, particularly in Africa, have advanced in preparing strategies to achieve the MDGs. As of mid-2007, 41 sub-Saharan African countries have started the process of preparing national development strategies aligned with the MDGs and other development goals agreed upon through the United Nations.

In general, strategies should adopt a wide-ranging approach that seeks to achieve pro-poor economic growth, including through the creation of a large number of additional opportunities for decent work. This, in turn, will require comprehensive programmes for human development, particularly in education and health, as well as building productive capacity and improved physical infrastructure. In each case, an effort should be made to quantify the resources required to implement these programmes. Implementation should be based on a medium-term approach to public expenditure. A sound national statistical system and enhanced public accountability are necessary to support all these efforts.

The MDGs should also be systematically integrated into post-conflict recovery strategies, by coordinating security and humanitarian operations with long-term development efforts. They provide outcome objectives that countries can use as benchmarks for the transition from relief and recovery to long-term development. But success in achieving the MDGs in the poorest and most disadvantaged countries cannot be achieved without international aid. Rich nations need to meet the long-standing target of devoting 0.7 per cent of their gross national income to official development assistance. The leading industrialized countries at the G8 Summit 2005 in Gleneagles (Scotland) pledged to double aid to Africa by 2015, and reaffirmed their commitment at the G8 Summit 2007 in Heiligendamm (Germany). Since 2005, however, aid to the African continent and to the poorest countries overall, excluding debt relief and humanitarian assistance, has barely increased.

It is essential that donor countries renew their efforts to increase development aid. Moreover, to ensure good governance on their part, donors need to inform every country how much aid it will receive in the coming years so that Governments can plan for the increased investments needed to achieve the MDGs. As a further element of their development partnership, and as agreed to in the Fourth World Trade Organization (WTO) Ministerial Conference in Doha in 2001, all Governments should redouble their efforts to reach a successful and equitable conclusion of the present trade negotiations -- an outcome that ensures that the international trading system and global trading arrangements become more conducive to progress in all developing countries.

Addressing the challenge of climate change has to be a new but integral element of each country's development strategy. More importantly, however, it should become an enhanced part of the international development agenda. All development partners should collaborate intensively in devising a shared global strategy to address this global problem.