Extreme poverty up in poorest nations

By EDITH M. LEDERER, Associated Press Writer1 hour, 41 minutes ago

Many of the world's poorest countries lamented at a U.N. ministerial meeting Monday that some of the least developed nations are experiencing increases in extreme poverty.

A day before world leaders gather for their annual meeting, the U.N. General Assembly held a high-level session to focus on progress toward implementing a 10-year action plan for the least developed countries adopted in 2001.

"The list of the least developed countries keeps growing," said President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom of the Maldives. "With the high speed of globalization, the gap between the north and the south is ever increasing. Can the rich afford to help the poor?"

General Assembly President Sheikha Haya Rashed Al Khalifa urged stepped up efforts to help elevate the status of the 600 million people living in the 50 most vulnerable countries in the world.

"The least developed countries remain marginalized in the world economy and continue to suffer from extreme poverty, child mortality and HIV/AIDS," she said. "In many instances development is being set back by civil conflict, and the cost required to rebuild every day life."

While the world's poorest countries achieved an annual average economic growth rate of 6 percent in 2004, the highest in four decades, overall progress remained mixed, Sheikha Haya said.

"Recent studies by U.N. agencies and the World Bank have revealed that 34 of the total of 50 least developed countries are experiencing increases in extreme poverty," she said.

The key agreement in the 10-year action plan called for rich donor countries to boost aid, trade and debt relief while governments in the world's 50 most economically vulnerable nations pledged to reform their economies and the way they govern. The plan followed the adoption by world leaders at a September 2000 summit of a series of goals to promote development, the most critical to cut extreme poverty by half by 2015.

Finland's Labor Minister Tarja Filatov, speaking on behalf of the European Union, welcomed the fact that economic growth in the poorest countries has almost reached the target of 7 percent. But despite this, she said, "poverty and deprivation remain high" in most of the least developed countries.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060919/ap_on_re_af/un_world_s_poorest_countries