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".

"The challenges the goals represent are staggering," said UN Under Secretary General Jose Antonio Ocampo.

"But there are clear signs of hope," he added, insisting that some of the development goals were within grasp.

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

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

Efforts to tackle poverty in Asia have made far greater inroads, cutting the proportion of extremely poor by more than half in eastern Asia and south east Asia to 14 percent and 7.3 percent respectively.

In south Asia the proportion of people living on less than one dollar a day 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.

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