The UN Summit on the Millennium Development Goals taking place this week concluded with the adoption of a global action plan to achieve the 8 anti-poverty goals by 2015 – their original target date. There was also an announcement of major new commitments for women's and children's health and other initiatives against poverty, hunger and disease. Is another action plan what is needed? Do countries simply need to put their money where their mouth is? Is aid what is needed? What about trade? The argument for equitable trading policies is strongly voiced by many nongovernmental organisations including Good Africa .

Clegg’s speech at the UN General Assembly, his first on the world stage, failed to hit the mark. Whilst it is to be commended that in these ‘tough economic times’, when the LibCon solution seems to be to cut cut cut, the Government is committed to reaching 0.7% of GNI in aid from 2013 there is still a lot more to be done. The speech had slight post-colonial over tones, further entrenching the ‘them’ and ‘us’ mentality that has for so long stifled African development. At times it was as if he personally was acting as midwife ‘we will be saving the lives of at least 50,000 women in pregnancy and childbirth’ . This is condescending to say the least.

There was no mention of debt relief for countries that have been crippled by debt repayments, for example Bangladesh pays more on annual debt repayments than it receives in foreign aid. A fact that Jubilee Scotland say is highly problematic considering over 80% of the population are living in poverty and lack many basic services.

There is good, clear analysis from the World Development Movement on Assessing the progress towards the Millennium Development Goals - goal by goal.