The knowledge is there to achieve development goals, but is the will? Interim reports published in September showed that--unless something dramatic happens--the world will fall far short of most of the Millennium Development Goals to reduce poverty and improve health in developing countries by 2015

Bulletin of the World Health Organization, October, 2004 by Clare Nullis-Kapp

With a decade to go until the deadline for the Millennium Development Goals, it is clear that key targets on health agreed by heads of state in 2000 will be missed--not for want of knowledge and technical tools but lack of political will and resources.

Using a baseline of 1990, the targets state that by 2015: the number of people suffering from malnutrition and extreme poverty should be halved; infant and child mortality reduced by two-thirds; maternal mortality be slashed by three-quarters; and the spread of communicable diseases such as HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria reversed.

Other targets include gender equality; universal access to primary education; and more widespread sanitation and drinking-water.

In his annual report to the General...