Millennium Development Goals

Oxfam welcomes the action plan put forward today by the European Commission for the EU to catch up on its commitments towards the Millennium Development Goals. Member states must give their go-ahead at the EU summit in June.

The World Development Indicators report released today by the World Bank shows that sub-Saharan Africa is off-target, overall, on all Millennium Development Goals. It lays bare the human cost of rich countries' failure to deliver on their aid promises.

The 2009 overseas aid figures released today by the OECD show that rich countries are failing to deliver on their promises to poorer countries. The amount of aid has fallen by $3.5 billion when compared with last year’s prices.

A group of powerful women from the front-line in the fight against poverty have appealed to European leaders to ensure health and education for all people by rescuing the Millennium Development Goals.

Governments are legally bound to ensure the right to food for all. Nevertheless, today there are one billion hungry people in the world and millions more are food insecure.

Monday’s UN World Food Summit in Rome (16-18th) could be a waste of time and money unless world leaders intervene now to salvage it. International agencies ActionAid and Oxfam say governments are at risk of throwing away a great chance to stop more than one billion people going hungry.

Half the world’s food is lost as waste and a billion people – one in every six of the world’s poorest – cannot access enough of the other half and so go hungry every day. Our leaders have another chance to put that right.

On 6 December 2006, the UN General Assembly first voted to work towards an Arms Trade Treaty to protect civilians worldwide from irresponsible arms transfers.

Failure to provide free public healthcare in poor countries means that millions of people are paying with their lives, according to a research report published today by a group of 62 NGOs and health unions.

A new Oxfam report has today warned that at least 4.5 million children could die unless world leaders deliver additional funds to help poor countries fight the growing impact of climate change, rather than diverting it from existing aid promises.