A UN background briefing prepared for the world summit on the Millennium targets at the United Nations in New York scheduled for next month said 11 Asian countries with poverty rates above five percent were "likely to miss the income-poverty target,” these included Bangladesh, Georgia, India, the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Uzbekistan.


This came to light when ministers and civil soceity representatvies from 25 countries ranging from Iceland to New Zealand met for two days in Indonesia to review progress on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

The ministers expressed grave convern about persistent high levels of infant and maternal mortality and pledged to reinvigorate efforts to achieve UN development goals

The conference in Jakarta comes ahead of next month's world summit on the millennium targets at the United Nations in New York. The goals cover indicators like poverty, health and education by 2015.

"There has been progress in some areas of the MDGs but there are also areas where progress has been slow and may only expect to meet these targets after 2015," the ministers said in a joint statement at the end of the meeting.

UN Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs Sha Zukang said that while East and Southeast Asia had already met the target of halving extreme poverty, countries like India and Nepal still had a long way to go.