How do the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) relate to the ‘Water for Life’ Decade, 2005-2015?
The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), agreed to at the Millennium Summit in 2000, set specific targets for reducing poverty, hunger, disease, illiteracy, environmental degradation, and empowering women by 2015. Regarding water and sanitation, the relevant targets of the MDGs are to reduce by half the proportion of people without access to safe drinking water and sanitation by 2015, the year that marks the end of the ‘Water for Life’ Decade. The Millennium Declaration also calls on nations to stop the unsustainable exploitation of water resources. In response, the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg (2002) called on nations to prepare integrated water resource management and water efficiency plans by 2005. These plans can be used as a framework for the Decade. As the MDGs are inherently interdependent, improved access to freshwater and sanitation will help to achieve the Millennium targets for health, gender equality (by empowering women) and the overarching goal
