A/RES/55/2 17. We also resolve to address the special needs of small island developing States, by implementing the Barbados Programme of Action 5 and the outcome of the twenty-second special session of the General Assembly rapidly and in full. We urge the international community to ensure that, in the development of a vulnerability index, the special needs of small island developing States are taken into account. 18. We recognize the special needs and problems of the landlocked developing countries, and urge both bilateral and multilateral donors to increase financial and technical assistance to this group of countries to meet their special development needs and to help them overcome the impediments of geography by improving their transit transport systems. 19. We resolve further: • To halve, by the year 2015, the proportion of the world’s people whose income is less than one dollar a day and the proportion of people who suffer from hunger and, by the same date, to halve the proportion of people who are unable to reach or to afford safe drinking water. • To ensure that, by the same date, children everywhere, boys and girls alike, will be able to complete a full course of primary schooling and that girls and boys will have equal access to all levels of education. • By the same date, to have reduced maternal mortality by three quarters, and under-five child mortality by two thirds, of their current rates. • To have, by then, halted, and begun to reverse, the spread of HIV/AIDS, the scourge of malaria and other major diseases that afflict humanity. • To provide special assistance to children orphaned by HIV/AIDS. • By 2020, to have achieved a significant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers as proposed in the “Cities Without Slums” initiative. 20. We also resolve: • To promote gender equality and the empowerment of women as effective ways to combat poverty, hunger and disease and to stimulate development that is truly sustainable. • To develop and implement strategies that give young people everywhere a real chance to find decent and productive work. • To encourage the pharmaceutical industry to make essential drugs more widely available and affordable by all who need them in developing countries. • To develop strong partnerships with the private sector and with civil society organizations in pursuit of development and poverty eradication. 5 Programme of Action for the Sustainable Development of Small Island Developing States (Report of the Global Conference on the Sustainable Development of Small Island Developing States, Bridgetown, Barbados, 25 April-6May 1994 (United Nations publication, Sales No. E.94.I.18 and corrigenda), chap. I, resolution 1, annex II). 5