The eight UN Millennium Development Goals, which range from halving extreme poverty, improving health and providing universal primary education by the target date of 2015, from a blueprint agreed to by all the world's countries and all the world's leading developments institutions. They have galvanized unprecedented efforts to meet the needs of the world's poorest including the need for access to safe water.

The eight UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) can be found here: http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/