STWR - Share The World's Resources

The much-ballyhooed Millennium Development Goals (MDGs ) -- which include the reduction of extreme poverty and hunger by 50 percent by 2015 -- are being seriously undermined by food, financial and climate change crises, reports Thalif Deen.

Halfway to the deadline for reaching the Millennium Development Goals, Oxfam argue that economic woes must not be used as excuses - and that rich countries’ credibility is on the line.

The annual DATA Report represents an attempt to track down and present progress on the Gleneagles commitments made at the G8 meeting, 2005, on aid donations and the Millennium Development Goals.

Hopes for peace in Afghanistan have been undermined by the failure of major international donors to deliver some 10 billion dollars in pledged humanitarian assistance and the "wasteful and ineffective" use of available aid money, according to a new report entitled 'Falling Short'.

WaterAid marked the midway point in the agreed timescale for achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) with the launch of a report, 'Global cause' and effect: How the aid system is undermining the Millennium Development Goals', which demonstrates how progress towards achieving the goals is being held back by donor preferences for 'global causes' which undermine the development priorities of recipient countries.

The world’s most powerful countries have failed to live up to their promises, distancing the poorest countries even further from satisfying the basic minimum needs of their citizens, according to the Basic Capabilities Index (BCI) published by Social Watch (www.socialwatch.org).

The quiet advance of trade and investment agreements between rich and poor countries threatens to deny developing countries a favourable foothold in the global economy, argues Oxfam.