The millennium development goals fail poor children: the case for equity-adjusted measures

Abstract

The spirit of the Millennium Declaration is to address the health and development needs of society’s most vulnerable and least served [1]. Issues of equity form a key principle: We recognize that, in addition to our separate responsibilities to our individual societies, we have a collective responsibility to uphold the principles of human dignity, equality and equity at the global level. As leaders we have a duty therefore to all the world’s people, especially the most vulnerable and, in particular, the children of the world, to whom the future belongs [1].