Develop further an open, rule-based, predictable, non-discriminatory trading and financial system (includes a commitment to good governance, development, and poverty reduction – both nationally and internationally.


Address the special needs of the least developed countries (includes tariff and quota free access for exports, enhanced program of debt relief for and cancellation of official bilateral debt, and more generous official development assistance for countries committed to poverty reduction).


Address the special needs of landlocked countries and small island developing states (through the Program of Action for the Sustainable development of Small Island Developing States and 22nd Gen3ral Assembly provisions).


Deal comprehensively with the debt problems of developing countries through national and international measures in order to make debt sustainable in the long term.


In cooperation with developing countries, develop and implement strategies for decent and productive work for youth.


In cooperation with pharmaceutical companies, provide access to affordable essential drugs in developing countries.


In cooperation with the private sector, make available the benefits of new technologies, especially information and communications technologies.

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Case Study: Bangladesh

As part of Digital Dimension, a tri-media project looking at the Millennium Development Goals and information communication technology (ICT), a BBC producer interviewed 11-year-old Shahsana 40 kilometres north of Bangladesh's capital Dhaka, in Roverpally.

"I can learn mathematics with the computer. If I have any problem with my English, the computer can solve it.

The computer can do lots of things. I want to be a doctor in the future, and I think doctors need to use computers a lot.

You need them for ultrasonography and x-ray. You can diagnose diseases, things like that." Shahsana

While there have been advances in the area of information communication technology in Bangladesh and the government is committed to making further improvements, in 2001 there was less than 1 telephone and less than 1 computer for every 100 people. (UNDP Human Development Report 2003)

The NGO Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC) has provided an internet connection and introduced computers onto the school premises, a rare provision outside the cities.

Fazle Hasan Abed, BRAC’s director, has said that Bangladesh’s rural areas "cannot afford to miss the bullet train of globalisation. And this facility, this window to knowledge, window to information, should be available to our rural population as well, because they constitute 80% of the population of Bangladesh."

The Roverpally buildings house primary and secondary schools and a college. A community library attached to them is one of several hundred BRAC has set up with local people’s support and contributions, as part of its continuing education programme. BRAC has now installed computers in 60 of them.

This library is the first where BRAC is also testing the value of Internet access, provided by wireless connection to their headquarters in the capital.

Email – as a cheap and easy form of communication – is also popular. Still mostly in English, internet content attracts the interest mainly of the older students and members of the community who have studied the language at school.

"Information is a birthright, a human right and everybody has a right to information.

We believe that one of the effective ways of exploitation is the isolation from information. So people should know, they should have access to information, access to knowledge, this is a major role that these technologies are going to play." Fazle Hasan Abed

The spread of information and communication technology is not an objective in itself. But, used well, it can play an important part in the fight against poverty.