[close] * One of 14 publications comprising the official UN strategy on how to reduce extreme poverty and achieve the fundamental world-wide human development goals for the coming decade <br />* Project directed by Jeffrey D. Sachs, named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time Magazine, current Director of The Earth Institute, Columbia University, and Special Adviser to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan<br />* The essential reference work for all governments, policymakers, aid and donor agencies, development practitioners, researchers, and students worldwide<br /><br /><br />Better education is fundamental to the prospects for economic and social development and the end of world poverty. Toward Universal Primary Education offers a rigorous set of interventions that countries can choose from to help provide universal access to high-quality education by focusing on hard-to-reach groups of people, educating girls and women to break the cycle of low education, and strengthening educational opportunities for adolescents. <br /><br />The UN Millennium Development Library <br />Toward Universal Primary Education, in conjunction with the flagship publication Investing in Development, is one of 13 thematic publications that comprise the UN Millennium Library. This set of reference handbooks charts world progress and presents strategies for dramatically reducing extreme poverty in its many dimensions--income poverty, hunger, disease, exclusion, lack of infrastructure, and shelter by 2015--while promoting gender equality, education, health, and environmental sustainability. This Library is the official, comprehensive point of reference and action plan for achieving the fundamental development objectives embodied in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) adopted by the UN and world leaders in 2000. [close]