The first Millennium Development Goal addresses the need for comprehensive, effective and efficient progress in the shortest possible time towards the solution of basic human needs associated with the most extreme situations of poverty, hunger and decent employment. This is the central MDG Goal as it reflects directly the Millennium Declaration intentions.

Target 1.A "Halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people whose income is less than one dollar a day" addresses the extreme deprivation affecting people's basic capacity to participate adequately in society. This target has a key place in the Millennium Development Goals, because extreme poverty is closely related to deficiencies such as malnutrition, mortality, lack of education and poor access to water and sanitation, among others, which are reflected in the other targets. Moreover, the targets set for the eighth Millennium Development Goal call for policies to alleviate extreme poverty by increasing the region's in official development assistance, together with greater and more equitable access to international markets.

Target 1.B "Achieve full and productive employment and decent work for all, including women and young people" expects to show the close links between the labor market and improvements in the material aspects of people's well-being, and recognize the importance of employment as a contributor to progress towards the other Goals. By emphasizing the importance of employment for women and young people, target 1.B recognizes the significance of those two groups in terms of their economic and productive contribution and the disadvantages they suffer in the world of work.

Target 1.C "Halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people who suffer from hunger", is not only part of the Millennium Development Goals but has also been reiterated in several forums and documents, thus highlighting the importance the problem holds for countries, and the urgent need to overcome it. Hunger is the result of food and nutritional insecurity, which is expressed, firstly, in terms of insufficient consumption of food to satisfy energy requirements, and secondly, in terms of undernutrition. Hence, progress in eradicating it should be measured both in terms of its relation to undernourishment arising from insufficient food for the population as a whole, and in terms of its manifestation among children, which is expressed in terms of children under five years of age who are underweight and small for their age.

On the bases of: United Nations (2010). Achieving the Millennium Development Goals with equality in Latin America and the Caribbean. Progress and challenges.