At the United Nations Millennium Summit in

adopted the Millennium Declaration and pledged to reach the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015. This represented an unprecedented consensus by world leaders on the major global challenges of the 21st century as well as a common commitment to meet these challenges. The MDG provided a road map and vision of a world free from poverty and hunger, with universal education, better health, environmental sustainability, freedom, justice and equality for all. Being on the last year for the targets, performance on the MDGs has varied by region and country; some regions are meeting the targets, some are closer to meeting the targets, while others not. But some countries in Africa have accelerated progress on the MDGs despite unfavorable initial conditions. An assessment of performance based on effort reveals that most of the top best performers are in Southern, East, Central and West Africa. As one of the 189 countries that ratifie