The world's anti-poverty gains achieved over the World anti-poverty gains under threat from multiple crises: UN report past years are being eroded by the presence of multiple crises, including an unprecedented economic and financial crisis, increased food security, oil prices volatility and climate change, said a new UN
report released here on Monday.
The report, entitled Trends and progress in international development cooperation, was submitted by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to the annual high-level segment of the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC).
"Multiple crises have created numerous obstacles for the achievement of the internationally agreed development goals, including the Millennium
Development Goals (MDGs)," said the report.
According to the report, the world economy shrank by 2 percent in 2009, and recovery in 2010 will be fragile.
The crisis has driven more than 60 million people into poverty and more than 100 million people into hunger, further reducing MDG prospects, it said.
Despite progress in some areas of the global partnership for development, most areas are not living up to expectations, especially in sub-Saharan Africa and the least developed countries, it warned.
The MDGs are a set of eight anti-poverty targets that world leaders have agreed to achieve by 2015.
The economic crisis sparked a 13 percent contraction in global trade, the largest decline since world War II, and was accompanied by some
low-intensity protectionist measures, said the report.
Trade is set to rebound by 7.6 percent in 2010, but persistent unemployment could intensify protectionist pressures, it said. Trade among developing countries, a key driver for growth, is rebounding sharply and projected to advance.
The global crisis has contributed to higher debt burdens in most developed and developing countries, eroding some of the progress made since the Millennium Summit in 2000, it said.
"The need for stronger and more effective development cooperation was never greater," the report observed.
In 2009, overall development cooperation is estimated to have exceeded 170 billion U.S. dollars, with official development assistance (ODA) from industrialized countries increasing by 0.7 percent in real terms, it said.
"ODA remains the bedrock for the timely achievement of the MDGs, " the report said, urging donors to set "ambitious targets for 2015 and put in place five-year plans for scaling up disbursements. "
The global economic crisis has slowed the fight against poverty, but the developing world is still on track to meet a key UN goal of halving the number of people living on less than 1 dollar a day by 2015, it said.
"This offers hope, and thereforeis the time for immediate action," it said.
"Losing this momentum in the fight against poverty will amount to a failure of development cooperation which the world can ill afford."