Here is what Global Monitoring Report (GMR) 2012 says about achievement of MDGs so far:
GMR 2012: Food Prices, Nutrition and the Millennium Development Goals reports good progress across some MDGs, with targets related to reducing extreme poverty and providing access to safe drinking water already achieved, several years ahead of the 2015 deadline to achieve the MDGs. Also, targets on education and ratio of girls to boys in schools are within reach.
In contrast, the world is significantly off-track on the MDGs to reduce mortality rates of children under five and mothers. As a result, these goals will not be met in any developing region by 2015. Progress is slowest on maternal mortality, with only one-third of the targeted reduction achieved thus far. Progress on reducing infant and child mortality is similarly dismal, with only 50 per cent of the targeted decline achieved.
GMR 2012 details solutions for making countries and communities more resilient in the face of food price spikes. Countries should deploy agricultural policies to encourage farmers to increase production; use social safety nets to improve resilience; strengthen nutritional policies to improve early childhood development; and design trade policies that enhance access to food markets, reduce food price volatility and induce productivity gains. However, the challenges countries face in responding to high food prices have been made more difficult as a result of the global recession.
South Asia has reached the target on access to safe water and will most probably eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education by 2015. Progress has also been made with respect to primary completion and, to a lesser extent extreme poverty reduction. Faster progress is required in terms of reducing child and maternal mortality and improving access to sanitation facilities, if the region is to reach these goals by 2015 or soon after. Progress toward halving the proportion of people who suffer from hunger is significantly lagging. All countries for which data are available are off track or seriously off track. Most of them will not reach the hunger target by 2015.
