Uneven progress on poverty

Today, at the midpoint toward achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), world leaders will gather in New York to see where more can be done to reach them by their deadline of 2015.

This is a critical moment as the prospects of a slowing global economy, high food and fuel prices and climate change threaten to derail and even reverse the progress already made.

Advances made toward the MDGs across the world have been varied. As the secretary-general's annual MDG report indicated this year, while significant gains were made on some fronts, the overall performance has been mixed. In particular, the benefits of growth have been unequally shared both across and within countries. This is particularly true for the Asia-Pacific region.