Millenium goals - to cut down poverty, to tackle the millions of avoidable deaths, and to improve equality by 2015 - will have world leaders focussing on new ways at a summit.
US President Barack Obama, President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad are among the leaders who will put rival plans to get the badly behind schedule Millennium Developments Goals (MDGs) back on track.
Most experts say it will be impossible to meet any of the goals, which range from cutting the number of people in extreme poverty by half and the number of children who die before reaching five by two thirds, to fairer trade and spreading the internet to the world's poor.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon says more money and political will is needed to give new life to the MDG campaign.
The European Union is expected to announce one billion dollars of MDG funds and the World Bank 750 million dollars for education, according to aid groups.
That still leaves more than 120 billion dollars to be found over the next five years. And the financial crisis has undermined much of the global community's ability to find new funds.
"I know there is skepticism but this MDG is a promise, a blueprint, by the world leaders to lift billions of people out of poverty. This must be met and delivered," Ban said in an interview with AFP ahead of the summit.
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