The global economic crisis has slowed the pace of poverty reduction in developing countries, and is hampering progress toward the other Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), says a new report from the World Bank Group and the International Monetary Fund.

The crisis is having an impact in several key areas of the MDGs, including those related to hunger, child and maternal health, gender equality, access to clean water, and disease control and will continue to affect development prospects well beyond 2015, says the Global Monitoring Report 2010: The MDGs after the Crisis.

As a result of the crisis, 53 million more people will remain in extreme poverty by 2015 than otherwise would have. Even so, the report projects that the number of extreme poor could total around 920 million five years from now, marking a significant decline from the 1.8 billion people living in extreme poverty in 1990.