Top 5 Millennium Development Goal success stories

Ten years ago, the UN gave the world's poorest countries 15 years to halve their poverty rates, reverse the spread of AIDS, enroll 100 percent of their children in elementary schools, and give 100 percent of their pregnant women access to medical care. Now a decade into the program, which of these ambitious goals will be reached?

4. Girls

By 2007, half of the Millennium Development countries had already flattened the male-to-female ratio in their schoolhouses. A generation down the line, the world’s houses of parliament are bound to seat some of those same women, researcher Liesbet Steer says of the Overseas Development Institute in London.

“There are really some great signs of progress,” she says.

That progress is happening in some of the world’s biggest nations – like China and India. But it’s also flourishing in corners you might not expect.

“The top performing countries in terms of improving gender equality are almost all from Sub-Saharan Africa,” she says.

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