This week's United Nations summit has been called to assess progress towards the millennium development goals (MDGs), a list of targets for the developing world that spreads outwards in complexity from a core group of aims. Eight basic goals - reduce extreme poverty, achieve universal primary schooling, promote gender equality, reduce child mortality, improve maternal health, combat HIV-Aids and other killer diseases, ensure environmental stability and create a global partnership for development - are further subdivided into 21 quantifiable targets that are measured by 60 different indicators.

There is no doubt that the MDGs have become an essential part of the discourse of development ministers and aid agencies the world over since they were adopted at a UN summit in 2000.