UNDP chief says Millennium Development Goals constitute a new global deal

The Millennium Development Goals adopted by world leaders meeting at the United Nations in 2000 constitute a "new global deal" between developed and developing countries, the Administrator of the UN Development Programme (UNDP), Mark Malloch Brown, said today in Kampala.

The targets aim to reduce poverty, achieve universal primary education, reduce infant mortality, reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS and halve the proportion of people without access to safe drinking water.

Speaking to students at Makerere University at the outset of a six-day visit to Uganda, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mr. Malloch Brown said the Great Lakes countries had come to appreciate the value of those goals, in particular as they relate to democratic governance.

The UNDP Administrator heads to Kigali tonight and then to Kinshasa on Thursday.