The eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) form a blueprint agreed to by 189 member states of the UN and major international development agencies at the Millennium Summit in 2000. They define a series of concrete, well defined quantitative targets across key development sectors which are to be met by the year 2015.

While there have been concerted efforts by the Governments to achieve the Goals, which had made definite progress, much more needs to be done in the remaining five years to achieve these objectives. Therefore countries cannot afford to face set back to developmental initiatives from either natural disasters or other events.

At the recent held High-level Plenary Meeting of the sixty-fifth session of the General Assembly on the Millennium Development Goals, the Heads of State and Governments gathered at United Nations Headquarters in New York from 20 to 22 September, 2010, while welcoming the progress made since 2005, expressed deep concern that the progress falls far short of what is needed.