The Enabling Environment for Implementing the Millennium Development Goals: Government Actions to Support NGOs

The United Nation’s Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) have focused the attention of the international community on enduring problems of global poverty and have attracted broad support. The MDGs establish ambitious targets for promoting economic growth, improving health and education, empowering women, creating sustainable development, and reducing poverty (UNDP 2003). The magnitude of the challenge is captured in one estimate that, given current trends, “33 countries with more than a quarter of the world’s people will achieve fewer than half the Millennium Development Goals by 2015 ” (DFID 2003: 6). Others express similar views, noting the varying prospects for different regions of the world. An African Development Bank report notes that countrie