Rich countries have largely failed to back their voluble lip service to combating global poverty by doing more to help, according to an annual assessment by a leading think-tank.

The Washington-based Center for Global Development said that while two-thirds of rich countries had improved their policies towards poorer nations in the last three years, seven had gone backwards. Nancy Birdsall, president of the CGD, said there was a “slow but steady improvement” but added that the rich countries’ achievements “fell far short of leaders’ soaring rhetoric in 2005, the so-called Year of Development”.