Extreme poverty and hunger has been eradicated from Bahrain, a top government official said yesterday (April 5).

Central Informatics Organisation president Dr Mohammed Al Amer told the Gulf Daily News (GDN), our sister publication, that Bahrain had achieved this objective alongside all the other seven Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) as set down by the United Nations (UN) in 2000.

"We can confirm, based on initial findings, that Bahrain has achieved the UN MDGs ahead of the 2015 deadline and a report is being prepared that will list in detail the achievements," he said yesterday, on the sidelines of a media briefing held at the Social Development Ministry.

The MDGs are eight international development goals that were established following the Millennium Summit of the UN in the year 2000.

They include eradicating extreme poverty and hunger, achieving universal primary education, promoting gender equality, reducing child mortality, improving maternal health, combating HIV/AIDS and other diseases, ensuring environmental sustainability and developing a global partnership for development.

UN resident co-ordinator Peter Grohmann agreed that Bahrain had taken major steps to achieve these goals.

"Bahrain is a country that has wholeheartedly embraced the MDGs and has made significant progress in achieving, and in some cases surpassing, most of the global development targets," he said. - TradeArabia News Service