800m still hungry despite millennium goals progress: UN

LONDON: About 800 million people still live in dire poverty and suffer from hunger despite the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) being the most successful anti-poverty push in history, the UN said on Monday. The number of people living in extreme poverty on less than $1.25 a day has more than halved, to 836 million from 1.9 billion in 1990, the UN said in a report analyzing eight development goals set out in the Millennium Declaration in 2000. “Following profound and consistent gains, we now know that extreme poverty can be eradicated within one more generation,” UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in a statement. “The MDGs have greatly contributed to this progress and have taught us how governments, business and civil society can work together to achieve transformational breakthroughs.” But progress has been uneven across regions and countries, the UN said, and the new sustainable development agenda should focus on inequalities to improve the lives of the poorest and most vulnerable people. -arabnews