Vietnam leads the field in its efforts to reach the UN’s Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), to cut poverty and increase public health care.

According to a report by specialists from the UK’s Overseas Development Institute (ODI), which was released on September 14, between 1990-2004, Vietnam has made "unprecedented progress" in improving the lives of the country’s poor.

The country has managed to halve the proportion of malnourished children and reduce the proportion of people earning less than one dollar a day, from two thirds to one-fifth of the population during this period, said the Institute.

|ODI also reported that Ghana, in Africa, has made a big leap forward in implementing the targeted MDGs.

The country has reduced starvation levels by nearly three-quarters, from 34 percent in 1990 to nine percent in 2004 and has outperformed every other country in the world.

Ten other African countries, including Ethiopia, Egypt and Angola, have also halved their poverty levels, according to the ODI.

In its report, the ODI critisised several countries because of a lack of progress in their efforts to achieve the UN’s MDGs, especially in poverty reduction and universal access to education./.