New York - The United Nations may be the next unintended victim of the global economic crisis as the organization depends heavily on the financial support and good will of its governments.

Traditional donor governments, Wall Street corporations and charitable groups headed by billionaires are suffering huge losses in their own fortunes under the relentless hammering of the economic meltdown.

With the world economy souring every passing day, the UN fears it will be deprived of the much-needed cash to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger, disease and death that are the targets in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), an ambitious programme adopted by governments in 2000 that has not shown signs of making strong headway.

In September, billionaires and politicians met at UN headquarters in New York for the annual session of the 192-nation UN General Assembly and pledged 16 billion dollars to fight poverty, hunger and diseases. But there's no guarantee the money pledged will come in.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in September called on governments to be "bold" and generous" in their commitments to realize the MDGs.

In addition to ending poverty, the goals call for halting the spread of HIV/AIDS, providing universal primary schools to all children, ending maternal and child mortality, and stopping the degradation of the environment, all by 2015.

But extreme poverty and hunger remain a priority. The increasing number of people suffering of hunger worldwide is a reflection of society's inability to feed its own people.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in said November that some 250 million people in West Africa alone need 361 million dollars to fight off the high food prices. The region is one of the poorest in the world.

"Our appeal to the generosity of the international community is more than just asking for money," said Herve Ludovic De Lys, the UN envoy in West Africa, which groups 15 countries in the Economic Community of West African States.

The 16 billion dollars sought by the UN to implement the MDGs is a drop in the bucket of defence budgets in many rich countries. Billionaires like the Gates and Buffett families have pledged hundreds of millions of dollars to fight malaria and other diseases in poor countries.

A group created to support the MDGs, called the UN Millennium Campaign, said governments meeting in Doha, Qatar, in late November for a financing and development conference should commit to "equitable trade rules and more effective aid" to help achieve the MDGs.

It said poor countries, on the other hand, must focus on mobilizing domestic resources and increase expenditures to implement the MDGs.

"Trade could be the most important sources of external development financing for many poor nations, but not until the rules are changed in favour of achieving the MDGs," said Salil Shetty, the campaign's director.

One measure demanded by the campaign is for rich governments to cut subsidies for rich farmers which have undercut the competitiveness of lower-price imports from poorer agricultural countries.

Ending poverty and hunger has been on the mind of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, which in November predicted that 10 to 15 million more people in the region will slip below the poverty level in 2008 while food prices continue to go up.

The UN said at least 100 million people have fallen into poverty this year because of high food prices. The world already has an estimated 960 million of malnourished people.

But statistics have not been consistent.

The World Bank said in September that an additional 430 million people were classified nearly overnight as absolutely poor because of the economic meltdown. The calculation emerged from adjustments in the estimated spending needs of individuals.

The MDGs called for eradicating poverty and hunger by 2015. Since the goals were launched in 2000, only a few developing countries have been able to make some advances in the poverty reduction. The world's poorest countries like Haiti and many in Africa have found it more difficult to feed more people while food prices have increased.