WB pledges to help poor achieve MDGs

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WASHINGTON: The World Bank Group has announced that it plans to mobilise significant new funding for health, education, and agriculture to help countries achieve their Millenium Development Goals by 2015.

According to Unfinished Business: Mobilizing New Efforts to Achieve the 2015 Millennium Development Goals - a new report prepared for the United Nations MDGs review summit - developing countries were making significant progress in overcoming poverty until the recent food, fuel, and financial crises.

Progress not shared by all

In 1981, 52% of people in developing countries lived in extreme poverty; by 2005, that share had fallen to 25%, with poverty falling sharply in East Asia, Latin America, and Eastern and Central Europe. But this progress has not been shared by all. Sub-Saharan Africa continues to lag in overcoming poverty. Hunger and malnutrition rates have been falling, but progress on meeting the MDG of halving the proportion of people who suffer from hunger was almost completely reversed in 2008 with the spike in food prices.

The World Bank now estimates that as a result of the food, fuel and financial crises, 64 million more people are living in extreme poverty in 2010, and some 40 million more people went hungry last year. By 2015, 1.2 million more children under five may die, and about 100 million more people may remain without access to safe water.