United Nations, March 17 (IANS) UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon has called for speeding up the progress towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals, Prensa Latina reported.

Ban Tuesday highlighted the importance of the UN summit in September in New York, intended to speed up the process towards achieving the eight millennium goals by the 2015 deadline.

The goals are to eliminate poverty, achieve universal primary education, promote gender equality, reduce infant mortality, fight HIV-Aids and protect the environment, among others. The UN adopted these goals in 2000. The upcoming UN meeting will adopt an action plan to achieve these goals.

Ban also urged the world leaders to make more efforts to build a sustainable world.