Declining aid to poor nations as food and energy prices rise and world economy slowing down is making it difficult to reduce poverty and achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) 2015, a new United Nations report warns.
The donors would need to boost their development assistance by $18 billion a year between now and 2010 to meet the goal of halving the poverty by 2015, the goal set by the world leaders in 2000.
Trade and aid are still major barriers on achieving the anti-poverty goals despite significant progress in debt relief for the poorest States, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in the report.
The report "Delivering on the Global Partnership for Achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)" launched ahead of high-level meeting on evaluation of progress of MGDs set for September 25 when world leaders would be here to attend the annual session of the 192-member General Assembly.
"This report sounds a strong alarm," Ban told a news conference yesterday. "While there has been progress on several counts, delivery on commitments made by Member States has been deficient, and has fallen behind schedule."
It states that though donor countries have stepped up official development assistance (ODA) since 2000, aid flows have actually declined in recent years by 4.7 per cent in 2006 and a further 8.4 per cent in 2007.
In addition, the recent breakdown of the Doha development round of trade negotiations aimed at establishing an open, equitable, rule-based and non-discriminatory multilateral trading and financial system was "a major setback" for developing countries seeking to benefit from expanding global trade opportunities to reduce poverty, it added.