A new UN report on fighting global poverty will call for sharply higher spending by wealthy nations on foreign aid, the BBC is reporting.

But that's not all. Fair trade, debt relief and helping build up the infastructure of the poorest countries so they can compete are all parts of Dr. Jeffrey Sach's vision.

An excerpt:

Many of the targets to cut poverty in half by 2015, set at an optimistic UN summit in 2000, are way off track.

Disease, war and incompetence in Africa, combined with a lack of will in the developed world, have already made them virtually meaningless.

'Joined-up thinking'

Monday's report by Dr Sachs is an attempt to engage real change in the UN to go along with grandiose declarations.

He calls for much larger transfers of money from the developed world as well as a change in trade terms and more emphasis on building the infrastructure of poor countries so that they can compete.

The report is a call for more joined-up thinking so that the poorest countries can put forward poverty reduction strategies which can work and can be financed.

Here's a link to the UN's Millenium Development Goals.

Here's one to Sach's report (.pdf file)

And here one to the UN Development Programme.