World governments need to provide more and "better" overseas aid if- they are to meet the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), according to a major international report on poverty and underdevelopment.
The 2005 Human Development Report, published yesterday, calls on governments to increase their commitment to the MDGs at next week's UN summit in New York, despite opposition from the United States to a 10-year timetable for their implementation.
The report says that while there has been substantial overall progress globally, many countries are slipping further behind in their efforts to meet targets set by the UN general assembly five years ago.
Some 50 countries, with a combined population of almost 900 million, are falling backwards on at least one of the eight millennium goals, it says. Twenty-four of these countries are in sub-Saharan Africa.
Another 65 countries, with a combined population of 1.2 billion, risk failing to meet at least one MDG until after 2040. "In other words, they may miss the target by an entire generation," the report says.
The MDGs include pledges to halve extreme poverty, reduce child deaths by two-thirds, and achieve universal primary education by 2015.
Kevin Watkins, the report's lead author, said: "The MDGs are a promissory note, written by 189 governments to the world's poor people.
"That note falls due in less than 10 years time, and without the required investment and political will, it will come back stamped 'insufficient funds'."
The Minister of State with responsibility for development co-operation, Conor Lenihan, said he fully agreed with the report's recommendations on the need to increase the quality and quantity of aid.
The Government is due to announce at next week's summit when Ireland will achieve the UN goal of 0.7 per cent of GNP on overseas aid.
The UN Development Programme report (see www.undp.org) says that on current trends there will be 827 million people living in extreme poverty in 2015 - 380 million more than if the MDG poverty-reduction target was reached.
The report says progress on aid, trade and security should be linked, and criticises the high tariffs, or "perverse taxation", which rich countries levy against the poor.
It notes that donor countries spent $1 billion a year aiding agriculture in developing countries and $1 billion a day on domestic subsidies that "undermine the world's poorest farmers".
The overall effects of agricultural protectionist measures and subsidies in wealthy countries cost developing countries close to $72 billion a year - an amount equivalent to all official aid flows in 2003, the report said.
It also argues that extreme inequality was a brake on progress towards the MDGs and wider human development goals.
In very unequal societies, "growth may have little impact on poverty", the report said.
"Economic growth alone will be insufficient to enable most countries to achieve the goal of halving poverty, and far more attention should be paid to creating conditions under which the poor can increase their share of future national income gains."
As well as increased aid commitments, the report calls for improvements in aid quality, citing excessive conditionality in donations, and weak donor co-ordination.
The report finds that 18 countries, with a total of 460 million people, had moved backwards on the Human Development Index, a compendium of key indicators such as income, life expectancy and education.
