The United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) set the stage for developing countries to reduce extreme poverty and the problems that accompany it, such as hunger, high rates of infant, child and maternal mortality, insufficient disease control, lack of education, illiteracy, gender disparity and environmental degradation. Each goal has a specific target level for progress, such as halving poverty or reducing infant mortality rates by two thirds. All goals are to be reached by 2015,

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... g 1990 as the benchmark year. By setting a time frame and specific levels of reductions for a variety of indicators, progress towards the goals is measurable, if data on indicators is available. Tracking progress is an essential step towards meeting the goals, as problem areas can be identified only through monitoring and evaluation, and interventions and strategies can then be developed to target them.