Economic slowdown to push 100m into poverty

Ban Ki-moon, the UN Secretary-General, warns in a new report that the gains made in reducing extreme poverty are under threat from the rise in global food and fuel prices and global economic slowdown. 

In the UN’s Millennium Development Goals Report 2008, launched on 11 September, Ban writes: “The largely benign development environment that has prevailed since the early years of this decade, and that has contributed to the successes to date, is now threatened. The economic slowdown will diminish the incomes of the poor; the food crisis will raise the number of hungry people in the world and push millions more into poverty; climate change will have a disproportionate impact on the poor.”