November 22: Bhutan has made tremendous progress and is steadily progressing towards achieving all the Millennium Development Goals by 2015. This was revealed in the report entitled Midway to the Millennium Development Goals which was launched yesterday by the Education Minister Lyonpo Thakur Singh Powdyel and the Assistant UN Secretary General Ajay Chhibbar.

According to the report, Bhutan has already achieved some of the targets such as reducing malnutrition among children and halving the number of people without access to safe drinking water and improved sanitation facilities.

Almost all the goals –eradicating extreme poverty and hunger, achieving universal primary education, promoting gender equality and empowerment of women, reducing child mortality and improving maternal health, and ensuring environmental sustainability are all on track. However the report points out that attention needs to be paid to improving the female-male ratio in tertiary institutes, increasing the contraception prevalence rate which is at 35% in 2007, and reducing the youth unemployment rate.

All these achievements, the Education Minister said, are the results of the successful interventions from the leaders and the government.

The UN assistant Secretary General Ajay Chhibbar said Bhutan is one of the few countries who are doing well in terms of progress towards the millennium development goals.

The UN Assistant Secretary General said the UN systems will continue to support the government in achieving their targets and the aims and objectives of the 10th Five Year Plan.