Yes­ter­day the United Nations released their annual report on the progress the world has made in meet­ing the Mil­len­nium Devel­op­ment Goals. The report says that the global reces­sion has slowed progress in meet­ing the goals, and in some cases, has even reversed any gains made since the year 2000.

This sum­mary of the report from Mail and Guardian, Faranaaz Parker gives us some sta­tis­tics found in the report. More from the U.N. after the jump.

The report showed that the pro­por­tion of employed peo­ple liv­ing on less than $1,25 a day (about R10) had returned to 64%. This is a drop of 6% since last year. The fig­ure is now the same as it was ten years ago. In addi­tion, the num­ber of peo­ple suf­fer­ing from hunger increased last year due to esca­lat­ing food prices — 29% of the pop­u­la­tion in Sub-Saharan Africa is under­nour­ished.
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The MDG on which the least progress has been made over the years is mater­nal health. The UN says 536 000 women die dur­ing preg­nancy, in child­birth or of labour-related com­pli­ca­tions, and 99% of these deaths occur in devel­op­ing coun­tries. With 900 deaths per 100 000 live births, Sub-Saharan Africa is lag­ging far behind the rest of the world in mater­nal health.

Here is a sum­mary of the report from the U.N.‘s press release. You can click here to down­load the entire report.

Gains in the erad­i­ca­tion of hunger since the early 1990s—when the pro­por­tion of hun­gry peo­ple decreased from 20 per cent in 1990–92 to 16 per cent in 2004–06—were reversed in 2008, largely due to higher food prices. A decrease in inter­na­tional food prices in the sec­ond half of 2008 has since failed to trans­late into more afford­able food for most peo­ple around the world.

• In the period 1990 to 2005, the num­ber of peo­ple liv­ing on less than $1.25 a day decreased from 1.8 bil­lion to 1.4 bil­lion (prior to the eco­nomic cri­sis and higher food prices). But major gains in the fight against extreme poverty are likely to stall, indi­ca­tors show, although data are not yet avail­able to reveal the full impact of the recent eco­nomic down­turn. In 2009, an esti­mated 55 mil­lion to 90 mil­lion more peo­ple will be liv­ing in extreme poverty than antic­i­pated before the crisis.

• More than one-quarter of chil­dren in devel­op­ing regions are under­weight for their age, and the mea­gre progress on child nutri­tion from 1990 to 2007 is insuf­fi­cient to meet the 2015 tar­get. This will likely be eroded fur­ther by high food prices and eco­nomic turmoil.

• Global unem­ploy­ment in 2009 could reach 6.1 to 7.0 per cent for men and 6.5 to 7.4 per cent for women, many of whom remain trapped in inse­cure – often unpaid– jobs, hold­ing back progress towards gen­der equality.

Fur­ther­more, the report sug­gests that many global gains were due to a dra­matic fall in poverty rates in East Asia. Else­where, progress has been slower. Sub-Saharan Africa counted 100 mil­lion more extremely poor peo­ple in 2005 than in 1990, and the poverty rate remained above 50 per cent.

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