The world’s rich nations are delivering less than half the aid they promised to developing states eight years ago, putting at risk fulfilment of a pledge to lift them out of poverty by 2015.

In the first detailed accounting of commitments made to meet the so-called Millennium Development Goals established in 2000, the United Nations revealed on Thursday that aid from 22 donor countries averaged only 0.28 per cent of their national incomes. By last year, Denmark, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden were the only states that had met a millennium pledge to raise that figure to 0.7 per cent.