While the Asian and Pacific region has achieved one of the largest decreases in mass poverty in history, huge challenges still exist in the fields of basic edu ca tion, gender equality, child health, maternal mortality and environmental sustainability, according to a United Na tions report released early June at Bang kok.

The joint report, Promot ing the Millennium Development Goals in Asia and the Pacific: Meet ing
the Challenges of Poverty Reduction, by UNESCAP and the United Na tions Development Programme (UNDP) also finds sharp contrasts in the performance of individual countries in the region. It further notes “unacceptable and unconscionable” declines in aid flows to the least developed countries and other vulnerable coun tries.

The first of its kind, the regional report assesses Asia-Pacific’s prog ress towards achieving the targets drawn up in 2000 at the United Nations Millennium Summit to combat poverty, hunger, illiteracy, environmental degradation and discrimination against women.

The report analyses the prospects, challenges and opportunities for attaining each of the 8 Mil lennium Development Goals (MDGs) in the region by the target date of 2015, emphasizing that the prime responsibility for achieving the MDGs lies with individual countries. The report finds that a few countries will meet all the goals and even surpass them. By contrast, some countries may meet none of the goals at all. The ma jority, however, will fall in between, meeting some goals but not others.