Leading article: Words are not enough

When times get tough, it is the poor who suffer most. Thus it is in national economies, and thus it threatens to be on a global scale, as a lethal combination of higher food and oil prices, economic slowdown in the industrial nations, and now a world financial crisis bear down on the neediest countries, least equipped to cope.

We are now more than half way to the target date of 2015 laid down by the 2000 Millennium summit for meeting the biggest development challenges of the age. The goals include the eradication of extreme poverty, universal primary education and a loftily titled "Global Partnership for Development" between rich and poor countries.

Today, world leaders will renew their commitment to them at a special event at the United Nations General Assembly. Mere words, alas, are not enough. It is already acknowledged that in Africa, the continent that lags the most, not a single country will reach the Millennium Development Goals by the appointed date of 2015. To put it crudely, rich countries must put a good deal more money where their mouths are.

However imperfect, development programmes have produced major recent successes. Since 1990, for instance, 1.6 billion people have gained access to safe drinking water, while between 2000 and 2006, the share of developing countries' export earnings going to debt servicing has fallen by half.

But these achievements are outweighed by the failures. International trade talks have broken down, largely because of the industrial world's refusal to remove domestic farm subsidies that penalise poor countries. And not only do the aid budgets of the richest countries account for only 0.3 per cent of their GDP, shamefully below the target of 0.7 per cent agreed to in 2002. For the last two years such assistance has actually fallen. Given today's deepening economic and financial mess, that trend is likely to continue. Rightly, Ban Ki-Moon, the UN Secretary General, has warned of an impending "development crisis".

But it need not be so. To meet the millennium goals, countries have promised to give some $150bn a year. That sounds a great deal of money. But it is less than a quarter of what the US alone plans to shell out on the far less deserving cause of redeeming the follies of Wall Street.