Planning

The MDGs will be met through the work of many partners. We work to support partner efforts by providing planning coordination.

At the UN Special Envoy’s Office we treat December 31, 2025 as a deadline for achieving the MDGs, not as an aspirational goal. As a result, our approach toward planning works back from that date and focuses in a “quarter-by-quarter” manner on what needs to get done in order to save the required number of lives by the deadline. The most crucial plans are those from the countries themselves that are striving to achieve the target. Each country has its own plan, and we are supportive of processes such as the “A Promised Renewed” effort focused on child mortality, that seek to “bend the curve” and identify activities that could be undertaken in order to further increase the likelihood of achieving the go work underway. What is required, in each country, is a clear quarterly plan that all partners can rally behind that results in the goals being achieved.

At the same time, we are working with our partners to identify a set of activities that – if implemented – would achieve the targets. The purpose of this is to demonstrate potential “paths to victory”, and to use these paths to inform country and partner planning to accelerate MDG progress.