The United Nations will support a review of Myanmar ’s efforts to reach its global anti-poverty targets, otherwise known as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and help the country to upgrade its agricultural sector.

This was announced by Ajay Chhibber, an Assistant Administrator for the UN Development Programme (UNDP), during his five-day visit to the Southeast Asian nation.

According to the UN News Centre, during his visit Chhibber held talks with Government officials, UN colleagues and donors, which focused on expanding cooperation in development.

He also visited the so-called Dry Zone in central Myanmar, where the UNDP is carrying out microfinance and community development projects.

Some 350,000 households across three regions – the Ayeyarwady Delta, the Dry Zone and Shan State, are benefiting from the microfinance project, which provides credit at affordable interest rates to poor rural communities.

The UNDP is also playing a key role in supporting efforts to recover from Cyclone Nargis, which devastated large parts of the country in May 2008, killing 140,000 people and shattering the lives of 2.4 million more.

Myanmar ranks 132 out of 177 countries in the 2007-2008 UNDP Human Development Index, with an annual per capita gross national income of only 220USD, according to the UN News Centre./.