UN asks nations to help halve world poverty by 2015

UNITED NATIONS, OCTOBER 19 (PTI) United Nations has called on all governments to live up to their pledge to halve extreme poverty by 2015 in line with the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) agreed on at a world summit four years ago, a process which has not being going well overall.

"The goals remain feasible and affordable, but we need a quantum leap in aid, debt relief and trade concessions on the part of developed countries," United Nations Secretary- General Kofi Annan said in a message to mark the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty.

"And we need similarly dramatic changes on the part of developing countries," he said.
Annan noted that most countries in Asia and northern Africa are on track to halve extreme poverty and to achieve many of the social targets. Countries in West Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean have generally made good progress towards some individual goals, such as universal primary education, but have been less successful in reducing poverty, he added.

States in sub-Saharan Africa and other least developed countries are making far from adequate progress on most of the goals, he said.

"Next September, world leaders will gather at UN for a high-level event to review progress in implementing the Millennium Declaration they adopted in 2000. But even now, well before that event, we already know that a major breakthrough will be needed if the eight MDGs are to be met by the target year of 2015," Annan said.