developing countries halved to 21%, or 1.2 billion people, achieving mdg1a before the target date, although the biggest decline was in china, which took no notice of the goal. however, the child mortality and maternal mortality are down by less than half. sanitation and education targets will also be missed. multilateral debt reduction g‑8 finance ministers met in london in june 2005 in preparation for the gleneagles summit in july and agreed to provide enough funds to the world bank, imf and the african development bank (afdb) to cancel the remaining hipc multilateral debt ($40 to $55 billion). recipients would theoretically re-channel debt payments to health and education. the gleaneagles plan became the multilateral debt relief initiative (mdri). countries became eligible once their lending agency confirmed that the countries had continued to maintain the reforms they had implemented. while the world bank and afdb limited mdri to countries that complete the hipc program, the imf's eligibility criteria were slightly less restrictive so as to comply with the imf's unique "uniform treatment" requirement. instead of limiting eligibility to hipc countries, any country with per capita income of $380 or less qualified for debt cancellation. the imf adopted the $380 threshold because it closely approximated the hipc threshold. sub-saharan africa one success was to strengthen rice production in sub-saharan africa. by the mid‑1990s, rice imports reached nearly $1 billion annually. farmers had not found suitable rice varieties that produce high yields. new rice for africa (nerica), a high-yielding and well adapted strain, was developed and introduced in areas including congo brazzaville, côte d'ivoire, the democratic republic of the congo, guinea, kenya, mali, nigeria, togo and uganda. some 18 varieties of this strain became available, enabling african farmers to produce enough rice to feed their families and have extra to sell. the region also showed progress towards mdg 2. school fees that included parent-teacher association and community contributions, textbook fees, compulsory uniforms and other charges took up nearly a quarter of a poor family's income and led countries including burundi, the democratic republic of the congo, ethiopia, ghana, kenya, malawi, mozambique, tanzania, and uganda to eliminate such fees, increasing enrollment. for instance, in ghana, public school enrollment in the most deprived districts rose from 4.2 million to 5.4 million between 2004 and 2005. in kenya, primary school enrollment added 1.2 million in 2003 and by 2004, the number had climbed to 7.2 million. following the adoption of the millennium development goals (mdgs), in 2000, jeffrey sachs of the earth institute at columbia university was among the leading academic scholars and practitioners on the mdgs. he chaired the who commission on macroeconomics and health (2000–01), which played a pivotal role in scaling up the financing of health care and disease control in the low-income countries to support mdgs 4, 5, and 6. he worked with un secretary-general kofi annan in 2000–2001 to design and launch the global fund to fight aids, tuberculosis and malaria. he also worked with senior officials of the george w. bush administration to develop the pepfar program to fight hiv/aids, and the pmi to fight malaria. on behalf of annan, from 2002 to 2006 he chaired the un millennium project, which was tasked with developing a concrete action plan to achieve the mdgs. the un general assembly adopted the key recommendations of the un millennium project at a special session in september 2005. the recommendations for rural africa are currently being implemented and documented in the millennium villages, and in several national scale-up efforts such as in nigeria. the millennium villages project, which sachs directs, operates in more than a dozen african countries and covers more than 500,000 people. the mvp has engendered considerable controversy associated as critics have questioned both the design of the project and claims made for its success. in 2012 the economist reviewed the project and concluded "the evidence does not yet support the claim that the millennium villages project is making a decisive impact." critics have pointed to the failure to include suitable controls that would allow an accurate determination of whether the projects methods were responsible for any observed gains in economic development. a 2012 lancet paper claiming a 3-fold increase in the rate of decline in childhood mortality was criticized for flawed methodology, and the authors later admitted that the claim was "unwarranted and misleading". graphs from the millennium development goals report 2010 malaria deaths declined by more than one-third, saving millions of lives. although developed countries' financial aid rose during the millennium challenge, more than half went towards debt relief. much of the remainder aid money went towards disaster relief and military aid. according to the united nations department of economic and social affairs (2006), the 50 least developed countries received about one third of all aid that flows from developed countries. funding commitment over the past 35 years, un members have repeatedly "commit 0.7% of rich-countries' gross national income (gni) to official development assistance". the commitment was first made in 1970 by the un general assembly. the text of the commitment was: each economically advanced country will progressively increase its official development assistance to the developing countries and will exert its best efforts to reach a minimum net amount of 0.7 percent of its gross national product at market prices by the middle of the decade. european union in 2005 the european union reaffirmed its commitment to the 0.7% aid targets, noting that "four out of the five countries, which exceed the un target for oda of 0.7%, of gni are member states of the european union". further, the un "believe that donors should commit to reaching the long-standing target of 0.7 percent of gni by 2015". united states however, the united states as well as other nations disputed the monterrey consensus that urged "developed countries that have not done so to make concrete efforts towards the target of 0.7% of gross national product (gnp) as oda to developing countries". the us consistently opposed setting specific foreign-aid targets since the un general assembly first endorsed the 0.7% goal in 1970. oecd many organisation for economic co-operation and development (oecd) nations, did not donate 0.7% of their gni. some nations' contributions fell far short of 0.7%. the australian government committed to providing 0.5% of gni in international development assistance by 2015–2016. review summit 2010 a major conference was held at un headquarters in new york on 20–22 september 2010 to review progress. the conference concluded with the adoption of a global action plan to accelerate progress towards the eight anti-poverty goals. major new commitments on women's and children's health, poverty, hunger and disease ensued. mdg3 according to mdg monitor, the target under mdg 3 "to eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education by 2005, and in all levels of education by 2015" was met. however mdg monitor points out that while parity has been achieved across the developing world, there are regional and national differences favouring girls in some cases and boys in others. in secondary education in "western asia, oceania, and sub-saharan africa, girls are still at a disadvantage, while the opposite is true in latin america and the caribbean – boys are at a disadvantage." similarly in tertiary education there are disparities "at the expense of men in northern africa, eastern asia, and latin america and the caribbean" while conversely they are "at the expense of women in southern asia and sub-saharan africa." improvements improving living conditions in developing countries may encourage healthy workers not to move to other places that offer a better lifestyle for their countries. cuba, itself a developing country, played a significant role in providing medical personnel to other developing nations; it has trained more than 14,500 medical students from 30 countries at its latin american school of medicine in havana since 1999. moreover, some 36,000 cuban physicians worked in 72 countries, from europe to southeast asia, including 31 african countries, and 29 countries in the americas. countries such as honduras, guatemala, and nicaragua benefit from cuban assistance. post 2015 development agenda although there have been major advancements and improvements achieving some of the mdgs even before the deadline of 2015, the progress has been uneven between the countries. in 2012 the un secretary-general established the "un system task team on the post-2015 un development agenda", bringing together more than 60 un agencies and international organizations to focus and work on sustainable development. at the mdg summit, un member states discussed the post-2015 development agenda and initiated a process of consultations. civil society organizations also engaged in the post-2015 process, along with academia and other research institutions, including think tanks. the sustainable development goals (sdgs) have been proposed as targets relating to future international development once the mdgs expire at the end of 2015. on 31 july 2012, secretary-general ban ki-moon appointed 26 public and private leaders to advise him on the post-mdg agenda. in 2014, the un's commission on the status of women agreed on a document that called for the acceleration of progress towards achieving the millennium development goals, and confirmed the need for a stand-alone goal on gender equality and women's empowerment in post-2015 goals, and for gender equality to underpin all of the post-2015 goals. the un's commission on the status of women electing to have created a goal dedicated to gender equality and the empowerment of women further demonstrated how the united nations's millennium development goals did not make much progress on gender equality. the goal of achieving gender equity is still a prominent issue and factor to in global development due to its ties to the rest of the sdgs. related activities/organisations the united nations millennium campaign was launched to increase support for the millennium development goals. the millennium campaign targets intergovernmental, government, civil society organizations and media at global and regional levels. the millennium promise alliance, inc. (or simply the "millennium promise") is a u.s.-based non-profit organization founded in 2005 by jeffrey sachs and ray chambers. millennium promise coordinated the millennium villages project in partnership with columbia's earth institute and undp; it aimed to demonstrate mdg feasibility through an integrated, community-led approach. the project ran from 2005 to 2015, operating in 15 sites across 11 countries in sub-saharan africa. the global poverty project, later rebranded as global citizen, supported the mdgs. the micah challenge was an international campaign that encourages christians to support the millennium development goals. their aim was to "encourage our leaders to halve global poverty by 2015". the youth in action eu programme "cartoons in action" project created animated videos about mdgs, and videos about mdg targets using arcade c64 videogames. the world we want 2015 was a platform and joint venture between the united nations and civil society organizations that supported citizen participation in defining a new global development framework to replace the millennium development goals. education the teach mdgs, and accessing development education european projects, coordinated by future worlds center aim to increase mdg awareness and public support by engaging teacher training institutes, teachers and pupils in developing local teaching resources that promote the mdgs with a focus on sub-saharan africa. global education magazine is an initiative launched by the teaching team that formulated the proposal most voted in the group "sustainable development for the eradication of poverty in rio+20". it is supported by unesco and unhcr and aims to create a common place to disseminate transcultural, transpolitical, transnational and transhumanist knowledge. un goals un goals is a global project dedicated to spreading knowledge of mdg through various internet and offline awareness campaigns. libraries and the millennium development goals librarians and others in the information professions are in a unique position to help achieve the millennium development goals. it is often the dissemination of key information, e.g., about health, that changes daily life and can affect an entire community. millennium development goals are not only for the developing world. maret (2011) specifically addresses how u.s. public libraries can help the united states meet the goals. the work of u.s. librarians has evolved in a manner that incorporates human rights values and precepts without having generally used the language that characterizes the philosophical and ethical goals of human rights and human development. librarians are able to further the millennium development goals and contribute by providing information and services to all people in