Eradicating Extreme Poverty and Hunger
Although the number of people living in extreme poverty has been reduced since 1990; globally 980 million people still live on less than $1 a day. The most outstanding achievement of Turkey in the past years in attaining the Millennium Development Goals has been the reduction of the levels of poverty. Poverty, defined as living on a dollar a day, has practically been eliminated standing at 0.01 % in 2006 compared to 0.2 % in 2002. While the proportion of food poverty in Turkey was 1.35 % in 2002, this rate decreased to 1.29 % in 2003. Fortunately Turkey does not face a hunger problem but rather a poverty-related malnutrition. The prevalence of underweight children under five years of age was 8.3% in 1998 while this rate fell down to 3.9% in 2003.

Achieving Universal Primary Education
Although progress is being made in reducing the number of children out of school, enrolment ratio in primary education is quite low. According to enrolment data about 72 million children of primary school age globally were not in school in 2005 of which 57% of them were girls. In Turkey a significant increase in enrolment rates for both boys and girls is observed between 1997 and 2001 compared to the 1990-1996 period. After 1997, the net enrollment ratio increased by 11% for girls and 6% for boys. The literacy rate of 15-24 age group on the other hand reached 96.6% in 2003. The existing differences between genders show that females require more attention. The Turkish Ministry of Education however has past and continuing initiatives regarding the issue. The “Come on Girls, to School” (Haydi Kızlar Okula) campaign initiated in 2003 targeted the 10 most disadvanataged provinces in Turkey. The campaign enlarged to 33 provinces in 2004 and to 53 provinces in 2005. Today approximately 10% of primary-school age children are currently excluded from primary education but there is no reason for Turkey not to achieve the 100% enrollment rate by 2015.

Promoting Gender Equality and Empowering Women
Two-thirds of the world’s illiterates are women, and only one in five paid employee in the Southern Asia and Western Asia regions is a woman, a situation that has remained unchanged for the last 15 years. Globally, over 60% of unpaid family workers are women – meaning that they lack access to job security and social protection. Although Turkey has almost reached its goal of eliminating gender disparity in primary school education, gender is still an issue that requires attention. The share of girls not taking part in secondary education is striking for the country. As regards to literacy rates, although there has been a significant increase in overall literacy in Turkey in 2000, 19.4% of women were illiterates compared to the 6.1 % of men. Turkey is still far from claiming gender equality in politics where there is a major problem of gender representation. Although the representation of women parliamentarians doubled from being 24 in November 2002 to 50 in July 2007, this figure is still very low for a 550-member parliament. According to UNDP 2003 data Turkey ranked 96th among 175 countries in its female representation.

Reducing Child Mortality
According to 2007 Millennium Development Goals Report, in 2005, 10.1 million children died before their fifth birthday, mostly from preventable causes. In Turkey both the under-five mortality and the infant mortality rates are high compared to other European counties, although a significant decrease has been observed in the last thirteen years. Globally measles is one of the leading causes of child deaths among preventable diseases. In Turkey, significant achievements have been made in combatting measles. According to HUIPS TDHS 2003 data 77.9% of the children in Turkey were immunized against measles in 1993 while this proportion increased to 79.4% in 2003. The target for 2015 however is to immunize at least 95% of children. There are currently various ongoing projects and campaigns regarding vaccinations and better health care.

Improving Maternal Health
Maternal mortality levels remain unacceptably high across the developing world. Each year, more than 500 thousand women die from treatable or preventable complications of pregnancy and child birth. In Turkey information on maternal mortalities is insufficient but a study titled “Maternal Mortalities and their Causes” in 1997 showed the maternal mortality rate as being 49 in every 100 thousand. The majority of maternal deaths in Turkey occur during delivery. In fact half of all maternal deaths are during delivery while one-quarter of the deaths occur during the postpartum period. Among the factors that intensify the medical conditions related to maternal mortality in Turkey are high fertility, insufficient antenatal care and nourishment, under-use of health services and the low status of women.

Combating HIV/AIDS, Malaria and Other Diseases
By the end of 2006, an estimated 39.5 million people worldwide were living with HIV, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa. According to the same data, globally 4.3 million people were infected with the virus in 2006 with Eastern Asia and CIS showing the fastest rates of infection. Key interventions to control malaria have also been expanded in recent years. In Turkey there is no recorded death due to malaria. The prevalence of HIV/AIDS in Turkey is at a reasonable level and is lower than in Eastern Europe. However the steady increase in the number of cases suggests that there is a potential risk requiring immediate attention and more awareness needs to be built on the issue. On the other hand Turkey’s long-term efforts to combat tuberculosis have led to considerable success during the last few decades and the country is well equipped for both the prevention and the treatment of the disease.

Ensuring Environmental Sustainability
More than one billion people worldwide lack access to clean and safe water. On the other hand, deforestation, primarily due to the conversion of forests to agricultural land continues at an alarming rate. Added with the continuing emissions of greenhouse gases, these are all factors leading to climate change. Awareness of environmental issues has progressively increased in Turkey since the late 1980s. Progress has been made in developing legislation regarding environmental problems and the institutionalization of approaches to problem solving. Despite these positive developments however, there are deficiencies in the implementation of environmental management systems. Currently the environment-related portion of the Turkish legal structure is undergoing major revisions to incorporate the European Union directives, which will lead to an improvement in the environment in the long term. Turkey however started to freeze the use of CFCs before most of the Article 5 countries of the Montreal Protocol, and received an outstanding achievement award from UNDP in 1997. As regards to safe drinking water, according to recent data, access to safe drinking has increased from 83.1% to 93.6% between 1994 and 2002. Again, the proportion of the Turkish population using safe sanitation increased from 67.4% in 1994 to 86.5% in 2003. However Turkey still needs to integrate its environmental policies to its economic and social policies.

Developing a Global Partnership for Development
Developing global partnerships is crucial for poverty reduction and sustainable development. This involves developing a non-discriminatory trading and financial system thus answering the special needs of the least developed countries. Starting from early 1980s, Turkey embarked on an intense reform process towards a more outward-oriented economic development strategy. Reforms were made in all three public, financial and private sectors. In Turkey, the economy grew by almost 25% over a three-year period growth reaching 10% in 2004, putting Turkey among the fastest growing countries in the world. Turkey has also provided significant assistance to CIS countries and other countries in the region. Turkish International Cooperation Agency (TICA) that provides technical assistance to new independent countries for their economic and social progress completed 2956 financial and technical assistance projects during 1992-2004. The Turkish private sector also has a lot of direct investments in many developing countries.