4.2.2. Achieving the MDGS for all: Governments and the international community are working to achieve the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015. Concerns have been raised over the increased risk of not achieving the MDGs for minorities due to disproportionately high levels of exclusion, the impact of discrimination, identity-related issues and weak participation of minorities in decisionmaking relating to the MDGs.13 The UN Millennium Declaration clearly expresses that States resolve “To strengthen the capacity of all countries to implement the principles and practices of democracy and respect for human rights, including minority rights” (paragraph 25, emphasis added). Support could be offered to achieve this objective while at the same time avoiding potential negative outcomes for minorities in the process. Enhanced attention to marginalised minority groups may improve the chances of achieving the MDGs, for these groups and for a country as a whole. For example, the goal of achieving universal primary education by 2015 might not be reached if minority children continue to drop out of school because of the discrimination. Efforts are also needed to ensure the MDGs do not inadvertently violate minority rights. For example, forced displacement of minority groups from remote areas has been used as a means of improving access to social services for minorities, but has often proven to worsen human development. Governments could be assisted to understand the particular challenges faced by minorities in reaching the MDGs, and to put in place sound strategies – linked to minority rights protection – for overcoming these challenges. In her initial report to the Commission on Human Rights in 2006, the UN Independent Expert on minority issues highlighted that: “The poorest communities in almost any region tend to be minority communities that have been targets of longstanding discrimination, violence or exclusion. As such, poverty within minority communities must be viewed as both a cause and a manifestation of the diminished rights, opportunities, and social advancement available to the members of that community as a whole. Without a targeted focus on their needs and rights, they will remain disproportionately impoverished. And without a more coherent effort to reduce poverty through targeted strategies that specifically reach out to minority communities, the international community will fail to achieve, or sustain, the important targets set within the Millennium Development Goals.” 14 This section draws heavily on the report of the UN Independent Expert on minority issues, Achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) for Minorities: A Review of MDG Country Reports and Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers, UN Doc. A/HRC/4/9/Add.1 (2 March 2007); and on Minority Rights Group International, The Millennium Development Goals: Helping or Harming Minorities?, UN Doc E/CN.4/Sub.2/AC.5/2005/WP.4 (April 2005). 13 E/CN.4/2006/74 (6 January 2006). 14 34 M A R G I N A L I S E D M I N O R I T I E S I N D E V E LO P M E N T P R O G R A M M I N g