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Many developing countries are not on track to reach the 2015 poverty alleviation goals envisaged by the international community, according to a World Bank Report released yesterday in the USA.

The World Development Indicators 2002 Report urges rich and poor nations to take collective action to reach the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) agreed upon by the world community.

According to the latest World Bank report, despite progress in recent years, both poor and rich countries need to do more if the international community is to meet its commitment of halving global poverty in all the world's regions by 2015.

The report's section on South Asia states that the region has experienced rapid growth, averaging 5.9 per cent a year since 1990, which has helped to reduce poverty substantially. Strong growth in India helped to raise the regional average growth rate in the 1990s; Bangladesh and Sri Lanka also experienced good growth. The ability of the region, especially India, to sustain average growth of five to six per cent a year will be critical to achieving the poverty reduction targets for 2015.

The region has made gains in reducing mortality in children under five since 1990, especially in Bangladesh. At the same time, little progress has been made in reducing malnutrition; today, nearly half of all children under the age of five are malnourished. The resurgence of tuberculosis and the threat of HIV/AIDS are also a cause for concern.

The report states that according to current estimates, brisk economic growth in China and India will enable the world to reach the overall goal of halving global poverty by 2015. But the data in the new study - which covers all eight of the MDGs - says progress is uneven and that too many regions and countries are falling far short of the goals.

It states that still more advances are possible if poor countries improve policies and governance and rich countries expand trade access and increase foreign aid. Policies in developing countries have been improving during the last 15 or 20 years. Rich countries have eased barriers to poor country exports during the last decade, but obstacles remain high, particularly in agriculture and textiles. In the run up to Monterrey, the United States and the European Union had pledged to increase development assistance significantly during the next few years.

"The past decade has been a good one for opening up markets to goods from poor countries and a bad one for increasing foreign aid flows," said Nicholas Stern, the World Bank's Chief Economist and Senior Vice-President for Development Economics.

"Monterrey showed that we have begun to turn the corner on aid. But in the decade ahead, we must push vigorously on trade. We know development can work, yet 1.2 billion people still live on less than one dollar a day. The challenge of meeting the Millennium Development Goals reminds us all that we can and must do better."

The MDGs aim to reduce income poverty by 2015 and spur significant improvements in education, gender equality, health care, and in overcoming hunger and environmental degradation. The new study shows that for the poorest countries, many of the goals are far out of reach while even in better-off countries, there may be regions or other sub-groups that lag far behind.

The most quoted goal calls for reducing the proportion of people living on less than one dollar a day to half of the 1990 level by 2015, from one in every third person in the developing world to one in every six. The new World Bank report shows that reaching that goal is possible in most developing regions if growth in per capita income accelerates to an average of 3.6 per cent per year.

That growth would be nearly twice the rate achieved over the last decade, but the experience of some countries shows that it is possible. China averaged almost nine per cent annual growth in GDP per capita in the 1980s and 1990s. Vietnam saw growth of almost six per cent in the 1990s, which reduced poverty by more than a third between 1993 and 1998. In India, faster growth in the last decade helped to reduce substantially the proportion of people living in poverty.

Each goal is important by itself, but they should also be viewed together - they are mutually reinforcing. Better basic health care and nutrition increases learning and productivity. Better education, especially for women, leads to better health outcomes. The living of many poor people is damaged by environmental degradation. Reducing poverty gives people more resources to pursue better education and health care and a cleaner environment.

"This study is not a final verdict on how countries will perform, but it is a warning that many are not on track to reach many of the goals," said Shanta Devarajan, Chief Economist of the World Bank's Human Development Network.

"Just because a country is doing well economically does not mean it is in reach of the Millennium Development Goals. Countries need to work to ensure that poor people are included in the benefits of development. Poor people in developing countries urgently need access to quality health care services and education to enable them to fulfil their potential. Now is the time to take action to speed up progress, not five to 10 years from now."

The new report shows that prospects of reaching the Millennium Development Goals vary by region. Fast-growing East Asia could reach the poverty goals, with the number of people living in extreme poverty expected to drop by almost 80 per cent. Sub-Saharan Africa, meanwhile, remains the biggest concern.

Overall, East Asia and the Pacific remains a promising region for reaching the MDGs on time. In 1999, there were about 260 million people living on less than one dollar a day. That is expected to drop to 59 million in 2015. Benefiting from high economic growth and the highest levels of savings of all the regions in the world (37 per cent of GDP in 2000), the region also fares well in gender equality in school and child mortality.

On the health side, progress is lagging behind achievements in educational attainments and poverty headcounts and more effort will be needed to achieve the objectives.

Just how many countries reach the Millennium Development Goals depends on whether the progress in the past decade can be sustained or sped up in countries falling behind.

A look at the eight MDGs shows mixed results:

* Eradicating extreme poverty and hunger - The goal is to reduce the proportion of people living on less than one dollar a day to half the 1990 level by 2015 - from 29 per cent of all people in low- and middle-income countries to 14.5 per cent. Bank projections show that it is possible to achieve the goal in most regions if growth in per capita income accelerates to an average of 3.6 per cent a year - nearly twice the rate of the last decade.

* Achieving primary universal education - There have been small improvements in all regions in the last decade, but progress overall has been too slow to reach the goal by 2015. In 1999, there were still 120 million primary school-age children not in school, 53 per cent of them girls and 74 per cent living in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa.

* Promoting gender equality and empowering women - Equal access to education is a key step toward greater gender equality, but it is not the only one. Progress has been good in some regions, but even if this goal is reached, the world will still fall short of gender equality. Differences persist in legal rights, labour market opportunities, and the ability to take part in public life and development decision-making.

* Reducing child mortality - Rapid improvements before 1990 gave hope that mortality rates of children under five could be cut by two-thirds in the following 25 years. But progress slowed almost everywhere in the 1990s, and in parts of Africa, infant and child mortality rates rose. Only 37 developing countries are making fast enough progress to meet the goal, while vaccination rates for children have declined.

* Improving maternal health - In 1995, more than 500,000 women died from complications of pregnancy and childbirth, most of them in developing countries, with half in Africa. In Rwanda, there were more than 2,000 deaths for every 100,000 live births, compared to two per 100,000 in Greece. The lack of current data on maternal deaths limits monitoring of trends over time. The World Bank study says broader government action is often needed to improve policies that affect the lives of women and the capacity of the health system.

* Combating HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases - With an estimated 40 million people living with HIV/AIDS and 20 million deaths since the disease was first identified, AIDS poses an unprecedented public health, economic, and social challenge. Malaria is endemic in more than 100 countries and territories and affects some 300 million people each year. TB, meanwhile, is the main cause of deaths from a single infectious agent among adults in developing countries, and has grown rapidly in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, Africa, and South-East Asia.

* Ensuring environmental sustainability - Safe water supplies are important for improving health, especially in children, but the report notes that in many regions, the share of the population with access to an improved water source has declined since 1990. The loss of more than 900,000 square kilometres of forests over the decade also points to unsustainable use of natural resources. Greater understanding of how environmental changes affect poor people is needed to point the way to truly sustainable development.

* Building a global partnership for development - The building blocks of the new partnership, confirmed at the Monterrey Conference on Financing for Development, are stronger policies and good governance in developing countries; a more open and equitable global trading system; and increased resources through aid and debt reduction for countries working to meet their development goals. 

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