Website: http://www.unmillenniumproject.org

At the United Nations Millennium Summit in September 2000 world leaders placed development at the heart of the global agenda by adopting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which set clear targets for reducing poverty, hunger, disease, illiteracy, environmental degradation, and discrimination against women by 2015. In support of these goals, the Millennium Project was launched to recommend the best strategies for achieving the MDGs. Over a period of 3 years the Millennium Project will work to devise a recommended plan of implementation that will allow all developing countries to meet the MDGs and thereby substantially improve the human condition by 2015. The Millennium Project's research focuses on identifying the operational priorities, organizational means of implementation, and financing structures necessary to achieve the MDGs. The bulk of the research is performed by 10 thematically-orientated Task Forces, comprised of representatives from academia, the public and private sectors, civil society organizations, and UN agencies with the majority of participants coming from outside the UN system. Task Force 6 on Environmental Sustainability assesses Millennium Development Target 9, which sets the goal of "integrat[ing] the principles of sustainable development into country policies and programmes and revers[ing] the loss of environmental resources." Task Force 10 on Science, Technology and Innovation strives to develop operational strategies on how science, technology and innovation can help achieve the MDGs.