PSI and its affiliates are committed to reaching the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs): its programs are contributing directly to achieving five of them and indirectly to two more.

The MDGs, adopted by world leaders from 189 countries at the United Nations in 2000, are ambitious targets for improving life in the developing world by 2015 and, ultimately, for ending poverty.

Here are all eight goals and what PSI and its affiliates are doing to support seven of them:

Goal 1: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger.
The very poor are extremely vulnerable to the burden of disease. Since they have so few resources, illness can completely eliminate their ability to cope. As a result, PSI focuses on prevention of disease more than treatment because it is generally more efficient to prevent an illness than to cure it. PSI's preventive efforts save millions from the burden of disease and ensure that the poor do not become poorer.

Goal 2: Achieve universal primary education.

Goal 3: Promote gender equality and empower women.
PSI's mission statement commits it to focusing on low-income and other vulnerable people; girls and women are a critical part of this mission given their relative powerlessness and disproportionate susceptibility to HIV/AIDS, high-risk pregnancy, malaria and iron-deficiency anemia. PSI contributes indirectly to this goal by providing a wide range of contraceptive and other health products that protect girls and women from unintended pregnancy, sexually-transmitted infection and disease, and allows them to space their births as they and their families deem appropriate. PSI targets its malaria prevention programs to pregnant women and its multivitamins and iron-folic acid supplement to women of reproductive age.

Goal 4: Reduce child mortality.
In malaria, PSI works both on prevention (through insecticide-treated mosquito nets) and treatment (through prepackaged malaria therapy). PSI safe water programs prevent often fatal diarrhea by empowering families to disinfect their water at home for a penny a day or less. Since 1985, PSI has distributed oral rehydration salts and promoted oral rehydration therapy to prevent dehydration caused by diarrhea.

Goal 5: Improve maternal health.
PSI was founded in 1970 to make contraceptives more widely available through the private sector and, for its first 16 years, worked entirely in family planning (hence the name Population Services International). Through that work, PSI has given millions of couples the means to plan their families on their own terms, and prevented millions of maternal deaths from childbirth and pregnancy-related complications. In 2006, PSI products and services averted an estimated 6.7 million unintended pregnancies and 13,000 maternal deaths. In malaria control, PSI has improved birth outcomes for thousands of pregnant women who are targeted to receive insecticide treated mosquito nets.

Goal 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases.

HIV/AIDS: In 1988, PSI deployed the power of social marketing against the AIDS epidemic in the Democratic Republic of Congo in a project that was shown to have increased abstinence, mutual fidelity and consistent and correct condom use. PSI has continued to be an innovator in the field, introducing a range of products, services and communication strategies to confront the changing face of the epidemic in an increasingly targeted way. In 2006, PSI products and services directly prevented an estimated 213,000 infections.

Malaria: In 1995, PSI turned its attention to malaria, which leads to more than a million deaths every year. To prevent malaria, PSI distributes insecticide-treated mosquito nets (ITNs) and long lasting ITNs. To treat malaria, PSI makes pre-packaged malaria treatment available. In 2006, PSI prevented an estimated 34 million malaria episodes through its ITN distribution.

Goal 7: Ensure environmental sustainability.
PSI is contributing to increasing the proportion of people with sustainable access to safe drinking water through the social marketing of affordable home water treatment products in more than 20 developing countries. One of them, the safe water system, consists of a bottle of chlorine solution used to disinfect water at point of use. This simple solution, produced locally, reduces diarrhea episodes by 30-50% and provides clean drinking water for a family of six for a penny or less a day. Another product, PuR Purifier of Water, is a powder that removes pathogens and causes particles to settle to the bottom when mixed with water. Household water treatment approaches like PUR have shown significant reductions in diarrheal disease, particularly during water-borne epidemics. In 2006, PSI home water treatment products prevented an estimated 2.5 million episodes of diarrhea. A September 2006 UNICEF report says the world is on track to meet Goal 7 by 2015 although progress could be impaired if the provision of safe water to the world's poorest communities is not made a priority.

Goal 8: Develop a global partnership for development.
PSI contributes to this global partnership by strengthening the private sector, expanding commercial distribution channels, creating good jobs and developing the capacity of a wide variety of private and public sector partners. PSI uses local manufacturers, taps into the local distribution network and employs local staff. By selling health products, even at highly subsidized prices, PSI supports wholesalers who earn a little profit on the sale, encouraging widespread distribution to rural and low-income areas. By employing local staff and contracting with local distribution, research and advertising firms, PSI builds local capacity, gives stakeholders a voice in PSI's operations and engages in cost effective and sound business practices.