World leaders urge poverty push, some doubt goals

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - World leaders pushed for stronger action to reduce global poverty on Thursday but France said rich donor countries were strapped for now by a spreading crisis in financial markets.

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon pressed countries to be bold and generous during a special summit of the 192 U.N. members states that focused on whether the world will meet its target to halve poverty by 2015.

Ban said sufficient funds and political will could prevail in the battle against poverty, hunger, disease and inequality.

"The current financial crisis threatens the well-being of billions of people, none more so than the poorest of the poor," he said. "This compounds the damage being caused by much higher prices for food and fuel."

But French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said it was "sort of unfair" to talk about poverty goals when countries were battling a credit crisis.

Asked if France would announce new funding commitments for countries to reach the poverty goals, Kouchner told reporters: "No. We are always giving extra funds because of the always new crisis. For the time being we are really restricted."

With economic growth in developed economies very low or stagnant, Kouchner said the world needed new ways to finance development.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, however, appealed to rich countries not to use the current financial crisis as an excuse to abandon the fight against global poverty.

"This would be the worst time to turn back," he said.

While there has been progress in developing countries in Asia and Latin America, the United Nations has said not a single African country is on track to reach all of the targets set out in the Millennium Development Goals.

Ban said this week the fight against poverty can be won if rich countries provide some $72 billion a year and he urged rich countries to honor previous pledges of aid.

SPREADING FINANCIAL CRISIS

World Bank President Robert Zoellick said he worried the financial crisis could quickly spread to developing nations, already reeling from higher food and fuel prices.

He has said while some staple food prices have declined from their 2007 peaks, rice was still three times higher than in 2004 and the cost of wheat had doubled.

"In general, the developing world has provided some sources of growth in the midst of the turmoil, but now I am concerned with ripple effects of this most recent trauma could start to hit some of them more seriously," he told a news conference.

Leaders from developing countries expressed concern that the anti-poverty goals were beyond their reach as they grappled with higher food and fuel prices, and called on industrial countries to act firmly to ensure the crisis did not spread.

"We believe that the world's leading countries should act more responsibly in order to mitigate the consequences of the global financial, food and energy crises," Tajikistan President Emomali Rahmon told the U.N. General Assembly.

Still, Ban said success in reducing malaria deaths showed funding prevention and cures could pay off.

"We are close to containing this scourge," Ban said. "What we are doing with malaria, we should do with education, maternal health, climate and agriculture."

Microsoft founder Bill Gates said greater innovation was needed, such as developing new vaccines, he said.

Gates said he would give $168.7 million for research on a new generation of malaria vaccines. The grant was part of an overall $3 billion in new funds announced on Thursday for malaria by the World Bank, Britain, the U.N. and Geneva-based Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

(Additional reporting by Claudia Parsons and Patrick Worsnip, Editing by Doina Chiacu)