In 2000 the world's leaders agreed on an ambitious plan for attacking global poverty by 2015. Called the Millennium Development Goals, these time-bound targets spurred an unprecedented aid effort that helped slash the share of people living in extreme poverty in half. Now nations are hammering out an even broader set of goals for 2030, but this time the task is proving highly controversial. The Millennium Development Goals were drafted in a highly casual way and that simple process proved the key to their success.
