The Asia and Pacific region as a whole is forging ahead on many of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), but there is uneven progress within the economies, said a report released Monday.

The region is well on track and ahead of its peers in Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa to reduce extreme poverty by half, attain universal education and achieve gender parity in education by the target year 2015, said The Millennium Development Goals: Progress in Asia and the Pacific 2007 (MDG 2007), a joint report by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the United Nations (UN).

"We are at the half-way mark towards the target date of 2015 and have a historic opportunity to change the lives of millions living in abject poverty," said Shiladitya Chatterjee, Head of the Poverty Unit in ADB.

The MDG 2007 report said if the less developed economies in the region were able to speed up and meet the MDG targets by 2015, then some 196 million people in the region would be lifted out of grinding poverty, 23 million more children would no longer suffer from hunger and nearly one million children would survive beyond their fifth birthday.

"The 2007 MDG Update gives us an indication of what the region stands to gain if we intensify our efforts to meet the MDGs. We need to focus on those economies that are moving slowly or not making progress, and within those areas concentrate on improving the lives of the most vulnerable," said Haishan Fu, Chief of the Statistics Development Section of the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific.

The report noted that the region's greatest failures lie in addressing the issues of child mortality, nutrition, improving maternal health, and providing safe drinking water and sanitation facilities.

The Asia and Pacific region accounts for about 65 percent of the world's underweight children, as 28 percent of the region's under-five children are underweight and many Asian countries exceeding prevalence rates of Sub-Saharan Africa. It still has 60 deaths per thousand live births, nearly double that of Latin America and the Caribbean.

The most serious problems are in South Asia where most countries are off track, particularly child and maternal health indicators.

The region's overall maternal mortality ratio, at over 300 per 100,000 live births, is more than 30 percent higher than in Latin America and the Caribbean, and maternal deaths in Asia and the Pacific account for almost half of the global total.

The report warned that environmental pressures arising out of land degradation, poor water management, rising pollution in urban areas, carbon dioxide emission contributing to climate change, and other factors could push more people into poverty.

The other key areas where the Asia and Pacific region is making slow progress are provisions of access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation facilities, said the report, adding that 560 million people in rural areas lack access to improved water sources and 1.5 billion people are short of basic sanitation facilities.

The eight Millennium Development Goals, which range from halving extreme poverty to reducing child mortality, halting the spread of HIV/AIDS, providing universal primary education, and providing access to clean drinking water and sanitation facilities by the target date of 2015, formed a blueprint agreed to by all the world's nations and the leading global development institutions in 2000.

(Xinhua News Agency October 9, 2007)