Model Question and Answers for APSC | Identify the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) that are related to health. Discuss the success of the actions taken by the government to achieve the same.

Ans: The United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were 8 goals that UN Member States had agreed to try to achieve by the year 2015.

The United Nations Millennium Declaration, signed in September 2000, commits world leaders to combat poverty, hunger, disease, illiteracy, environmental degradation, and discrimination against women. The MDGs are derived from this Declaration. Each MDG has targets set for 2015 and indicators to monitor progress from 1990 levels. Several of these relate directly to health.

The goal to fight HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other major diseases was to stop and start to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS, stop and start to reverse the spread of malaria, and stop and start to reverse the spread of other major diseases. The Indian government started the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) in 2005 to improve and strengthen the rural health care that was already there. The goal of the National AIDS Control Programme is to keep people from getting HIV and to care for, support, and treat those who already have HIV. The goal of the National AIDS Control Programme Phase-III (2007–2012), which began in July 2007, is to stop and turn around the epidemic.

As part of the goal to lower child mortality, the goal was to cut the death rate for children under five by two-thirds. In this direction, the Indian government has started a number of programmes, such as Integrated Management of Neonatal and Childhood Illnesses (IMNCI), Home-Based Newborn Care (HBNC), the New Born Care Scheme (NBCS), and Immunization facilities.

The goal to improve the health of mothers included a goal to cut the rate of mothers dying by three-quarters. The Janani Suraksha Yojana was started by the government in 2005. Its goal is to lower the MMR by encouraging women to give birth in hospitals with the help of skilled birth attendants.