“A new study suggests that the United Nations’ much-lauded Millennium Development Goals [MDGs], which expire in the year 2015, did not accelerate developmental progress globally after they were announced in September 2000,” U.S. News & World Report writes. “The study, which was done by a statistician with the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA) while on a two-month sabbatical, was published independently this weekend after the U.N. declined to release it,” according to the news service. Author Howard Friedman examined data for some of the eight MDGs, but not all of them, U.S. News notes. U.N. spokesperson Vannina Maestracci “distanced the agency from the research on Monday in an emailed statement, saying it ‘does not represent the United Nations or UNFPA’s position,'” according to the news service. U.S. News includes reaction to the statistical analysis from Charles Kenny, a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development; Stephan Klasen, a professor of development economics at the University of Göttingen in Germany; John McArthur, a senior fellow at the U.N. Foundation and the Brookings Institution; and Jeffrey Sachs, the U.N. secretary general’s special adviser on the MDGs (Flock, 8/6).