Some regions were starting to make a dent on hunger, primary school enrolment has increased in developing nations, more children are surviving infancy in emerging nations, women were "inching forward" in labour markets and deforestation is slowing, a UN report said.

The proportion of people in developing countries living on less than one dollar a day fell from 27.9 percent to 19.4 percent between 1990 and 2002, the most recent data available, according to the "Millennium Development Goals Report 2006".

UN Under Secretary General Jose Antonio Ocampo said "there are clear signs of hope."

The targets laid out by world leaders in 2000 include a call to halve extreme poverty over 1990 levels and ensure that all children have primary education, as well as pledges to tackle infectious disease and increase aid.

"Real progress is being made on the ground across the world to meet the Millenium Development Goals," said UN Deputy Secretary General Mark Malloch Brown, insisting the world was on target to meet the poverty targets.

However, the number of people in sub-Saharan African in extreme poverty increased by 140 million between 1990 and 2002, despite a marginal decrease in the proportion from 44.6 percent to 44 percent, according to data in the report.

"There is some real evidence now that improved economic performance, along with some additional donor assistance and debt relief, could be laying the groundwork for significant improvements there too," Malloch Brown said.

Ghana, Mozambique and Tanzania were showing the way ahead with sharp improvements in social indicators, he added.

Efforts to tackle poverty in Asia -- where most of the world's poor live -- have made far greater inroads, the report showed.

The proportion living on less than one dollar a day declined by more than half in eastern Asia and south east Asia to 14 percent and 7.3 percent respectively.

In south Asia, the proportion in extreme poverty fell from 39.4 to 31.2 percent.

Chronic hunger worldwide decreased unevenly between 1990 and 2003, and the progress was "not fast enough to reduce the number of people going hungry," the report said.

About 824 million people were in the grip of chronic hunger in developing countries in 2003.

Despite an improvement, sub-Saharan African was trailing "far behind" on mortality rates for under five year-olds, which are nearly twice as high as the improving developing country average of 87 per 1,000.

Less than two-thirds of schoolchildren in sub-Saharan Africa were enrolled in primary school by 2004, well behind the overall developing country average of 86 percent.

The report said the number of new tuberculosis cases was rising, even excluding those associated with HIV/AIDS.

Meanwhile, the trend towards increased debt relief had helped aid to developing countries increase steadily by 2005.

However, debt relief "will not necessarily release more money for debt reduction", the report cautioned.

Only five wealthy countries -- Denmark, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden -- have reached the UN aid target of 0.7 percent of national income (GNP), it added.

Malloch Brown said efforts to reach the goals suffered a major setback over the weekend after World Trade Organisation members failed to unlock troubled talks on expanding free trade.

Freer agriculture trade is meant to help developing countries.

"Rural and urban incomes in developing countries took a prospective hit in terms of future growth with the outcome of the talks on the weekend," he said.

"This was a very bad weekend for those goals."