- Economic progress
- Millennium Development Goals
- Debt crisis


[SLIDE 1]

Economic progress has been tremendous in developing countries. Extreme poverty has gone down from 42% to 21.3% since 1990. Social progress has also accompanied economic growth.

While poverty has not been wiped out, it has radically gone down. In India, poverty has decreased from 52% to 22%, although there are still large populations of poor rural people. 


[SLIDE 2]

The Millennium Development Goals or MDGs enumerated in 2002, builds upon UN goals in 1990 and establish 8 goals.

These 8 goals include:
- eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
- achieve universal primary education 
- promote gender equality and promote women
- reduce child mortality
- improve maternal health
- combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases
- ensure environmental sustainability
- forge a global partnership for development

There has been progress in all of these goals. Child mortality has gone down in most areas of the world, while education has gone up from 58% to 76%. 140 countries produce reports annually on progress on these goals funded by the United Nations.


[SLIDE 3]

The World Bank under the UN, established after World War II, helped fund developing countries through loans.

World debt reached $4.08 trillion in 2010 with interest owed on top of that. Paying off debt has been very difficult. 

Pakistan had $52 billion in debt in 2009 but that grew to $73 billion in 2016 and the country has only been able to meet interest payments. With skyrocketing loans, Pakistan has been forced to sell off assets including state-owned services.

Donor countries such as the United States have given generously to help developing countries. Donor fatigue happens when high-income countries get tired of handing out money without seeing improvement. Also, there has been corruption and mishandling of funds in many developing countries receiving aid. Policy reform in receiving countries is now tied to allocation of aid.