" title="External link to: "(external)_The Economist_ , Poverty - Taking stock":http://www.economist.com/displayStory.cfm?story_id=9443073
" class="external">The Economist: Progress Towards UN Millennium Development Goals Varies Widely
Prepared by Christina Lauer
The UN has declared July 2007 the halfway point towards its Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), agreed upon in 2000 and scheduled to be achieved in 2015. The Economist magazine takes a close look at the interim results and comes to the conclusion that less has been achieved than the UN claims. Even though indicators such as the percentage of people living on less than one dollar a day are getting better, the situation varies widely among affected continents and countries. Whereas China and India are making substantial improvement, Sub-Saharan Africa is falling behind, with only marginal decreases in the level of extreme poverty.
Problematic is also the benchmarking of some of the goals themselves: poor countries lack reliable statistics such as the total number of deaths from malaria or from childbirth. According to the Economist, the developing countries who are lagging behind need accountable domestic governments which can supervise the progress responsibly.
