Millennium Development Goals

The eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were agreed at the United Nations Millennium Summit in September 2000 and nearly 190 countries have subsequently signed up to them.

The Goals range from halving global poverty and hunger to protecting the environment, improving health and sanitation and tackling illiteracy and discrimination against women.

Two billion people have no access to electricity and up to three billion depend on bio-mass (wood, charcoal and dung) to meet their household energy needs. Energy services have a critical role in achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The UN Commission on Sustainable Development has called access to sustainable energy a "prerequisite" for halving poverty by 2015.

Practical Action Consulting works in areas critical to the achievement of the MDGs. Projects listed below in the sectors of renewable energy, rural electrification and energy access, health, water and sanitation and rural livelihoods are some examples of our development consultancy work supporting the objectives of the MDGs.

• Networking for Promotion of Renewable Energy Technology, Sri Lanka
• Rural Electrification Strategy and Policy, Papua New Guinea
• Energy Access Programme Renewable Energy Component, Ethiopia
• Health, Water and Sanitation Needs Assessment, Sudan
• Livestock Market Access Initiative, Kenya
• Gender, HIV and AIDS Community Project, Zimbabwe
• Impact of Animal Traction Intervention, Sudan
• Technical and Vocational Education and Training, Somalia