Indoor air pollution and the Millennium Development Goals

The importance of interventions to reduce exposure to indoor air pollution is reflected in the Millennium Development Goals in many ways:

• As most of the disease burden due to indoor air pollution falls on children under five years of age, interventions will help achieve a significant reduction in child mortality (Goal 4).
  
  
• The collection of fuel imposes a serious time burden on women and children and alleviating this drudgery will contribute to promoting gender equality and empowering women (Goal 3).
  
  
• With less time spent on fuel collection, people will have more time available for education and income generation activities that are likely to contribute to eradicating extreme poverty (Goal 1).
  
  
• The proportion of the population relying on solid fuels constitutes one of the indicators to monitor progress towards ensuring environmental sustainability (Goal 7).
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Indoor air thematic briefing 1 gives an overview of the links between indoor air pollution, household energy and the Millennium Development Goals.

See also:

Evaluating household energy and health interventions: a catalogue of methods
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Burden of disease
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Databases
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Publications
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Fact sheets,
press releases, presentations
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Other web sites on indoor air pollution
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UN-Energy
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Partnership for Clean Indoor Air
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WHO's Programme on Indoor Air Pollution
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