Energizing the Millennium Development Goals: A Guide to Energy's Role in Reducing Poverty

In September 2000, at the United Nations Millennium Summit,world leaders agreed to a set of time-bound and measurable goals and targets for combating poverty, hunger, illiteracy, gender inequality, disease, and environmental degradation.The eight goals that were eventually agreed upon are what the development community now refers to as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

This guide has been designed to help development practitioners ask the relevant questions needed to bring about this change. It offers an overview of the some of the most pertinent issues regarding development and energy and provides suggestions and examples on how to address energy within broader efforts to reach the MDGs.