Understanding issues by understanding the numbers has been a basic part of my education and professional career, and is essential in my belief for sustainable change  These resources provide better understanding of the problems through the use of statistics and help point to solutions to the challenges facing the Millennium Development Goals.   The real star is GapMinder, the creation of Hans Rosling.  From the GapMinder website:  Gapminder is a non-profit venture promoting sustainable global development and achievement of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals by increased use and understanding of statistics and other information about social, economic and environmental development at local, national and global levels.

• GapMinder

  • Unveiling the beauty of statistics for a fact based world view

• UN Millennium Development Goals Stats

  • This site presents the official data, definitions, methodologies and sources for more than 60 indicators to measure progress towards the Millennium Development Goals

• UN Statistical Databases

  • The Statistics Division's main functions are:

    1. the collection, processing and dissemination of statistical information;
    2. the standardization of statistical methods, classifications and definitions;
    3. the technical cooperation programme; and
    4. the coordination of international statistical programmes and activities.

• Monitoring the Millennium Goals (English pdf)

  • Indicators for Monitoring the Millennium Development Goals:Definitions, Rationale,

    Concepts and Sources contains basic metadata on the agreed list of quantitative

    indicators for monitoring progress towards the eight goals and 18 targets derived

    from the United Nations Millennium Declaration (table). The list of indicators, developed

    using several criteria, is not intended to be prescriptive but to take into

    account the country setting and the views of various stakeholders in preparing

    country-level reports.

• Dollar Street from GapMinder 2007

  • All people of the world live on Dollar Street, the poorest to the left and the richest to the right. Everybody else live in between.

• Worldometers - real time world statistics -

  • Who we are

    Worldometers is part of the Real Time Statistics Project, which is managed by an international team of developers, researchers, and volunteers with the goal of making world statistics available in a thought-provoking and time relevant format to a wide audience around the world. Chief project coordinator is currently Sir Thomasson.

  • StopTheHunger.com - World Hunger statistics

Learn More 

• FrontPage

• What will it take to achieve the Millennium Development Goals and End Poverty?

• About This Effort

• Milestones for a New Millennium blog