The Millenium Goals

The United Nations agreed a set of Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in 2000, with a view to tackling global poverty. Now, half-way to that deadline, the UN has produced a report showing how progress in meeting the goals .

Sub-Saharan Africa still trails behind other regions, with only 70% of children attending school.

Sub-Saharan Africa has the highest child mortality rate at 166 per 1,000, with Aids likely to be a major contributing factor.

In sub-Saharan Africa, a woman's risk of dying from complications during childbirth in her lifetime is 1 in 16, compared with 1 in 3,800 in the developed world. Many of these deaths could be prevented by access to skilled healthcare staff.

Deaths from Aids are still increasing in sub-Saharan Africa. By the end of 2006, 39.5 million people across the world were living with HIV, many in sub-Saharan Africa. Access to Aids treatment remains patchy, particularly in Africa.

Efforts to combat malaria and tuberculosis are making progress, although sub-Saharan Africa is lagging behind in both.

In sub-Saharan Africa, the absolute number of people without access to sanitation has actually increased.

Foreign aid to the least developed countries has, in effect, stalled since 2003 - despite the G8 agreement at the 2005 Gleneagles summit to double aid to Africa by 2010.

The number of people living on less than $1 a day fell , sub-Saharan Africa having made less progress.

In Malawi , Director for the UN Millennium Campaign, Salil Shetty, addressing a press briefing in Lilongwe said Malawi is among countries with the highest maternal mortality rates in the world.Shetty also bemoaned lack of progress on issues of human rights and status of women in the country.