Haiti is in dire need of funding

The report, "A Common Vision of Sustainable Development", describes "the desperate frailty of daily life in Haiti and projects disturbing downward trends" over the next decade.

Haiti’s interim leader Gerard Latortue, whose administration worked with the UN to compile the report, said the report sets off "alarm bells".

"Haiti cannot go at it alone. The time for action is long past due," Mr Latortue warned.

The report showed that 76% of Haitians live on less than $2 per day, while 55% live on less than $1 per day.

Haiti ranks with Afghanistan and Somalia as one of three countries in the world with the worst daily caloric deficit per inhabitant.

Some 2.4 million Haitians cannot afford the minimum 2,240 daily calories recommended by the World Health Organization.

How do I feel about the misery I've seen? Perhaps I have spent so much time in the third world that I'm immune to it; one develops a thick skin, if only as a defence mechanism. Otherwise you would be unable to do your job   Care International aid worker Rick Perera

Haiti's mortality rates among women and children are among the highest in the world.

One out of every three deaths is a child, and Haiti's rate of 118 deaths per thousand live births for the period is by far the topmost in the Western Hemisphere and likely to get worse.

The ratio of women dying during childbirth has is now so poor, that it is the second cause of death for Haitian women; between 1994 and 1995, 457 out of 100,000 women died in childbirth, while from 1999 to 2000 this increased to 523 per 100,000.

The rate of HIV/AIDS in the former French colony looks set to continue spreading at an alarming rate.

The study shows that in 2003, over six percent of the population was thought to be infected a figure that could rise to 10.5% by 2015.

Poverty reduction

All is not lost for Haiti, as experts in the field of poverty reduction who have been meeting in the country this week, were formulating an ambitious plan to eliminate extreme poverty there within a decade.

Representatives from as far afield as Bangladesh and Bolivia have pledged to help the poorest country in the Americas.

Fonkoze is one of the organisations behind the project, which hopes to initially help around 10,000 people in the central region of Haiti, at an estimated cost of several million dollars.

Fonkoze already provides small amounts of low interest credit to thousands of poor Haitians.

Through it, many become economically self-sufficient, selling mangoes or other products, but many more, especially those affected by HIV, AIDS or tuberculosis, simply have no way of making a living.

Working with a rural medical care company, the new project, aims to give tailored social assistance, training and business incentives to those well enough to work.

"What we're trying to do in Haiti, is take a country of manageable size, one and a half hours from the richest country on the face of the earth and take all that we've learnt globally and put it into practice in one department in this country," said Fonkoze director Anne Hastings.

Poverty must be reduced in Haiti

"It makes everyone want to participate because it's something they can get their hands around," she told the BBC. "We can eliminate extreme poverty in the central plateau of Haiti and after that we will move on to the rest of Haiti."

She said experts from around the world who have been visiting Haiti this week; hope the country will provide an example to others.

They know they can't stamp out poverty all together, but they hope that by working in a land where so many live in such desperate conditions, they can shatter the myth that people cannot escape from the worst forms of poverty.

Meanwhile, an aid worker from Care International has written to Newsweek magazine giving his view of the situation in Haiti.

Rick Perera is posted in Gonaives where floods caused by tropical storm Jeanne resulted in the death of more than 1,500.

"The journalists have all but left Haiti," he wrote. "The suffering caused by the floods is no longer news, and we now work far from the headlines ... How do I feel about the misery I've seen? Perhaps I have spent so much time in the third world that I'm immune to it; one develops a thick skin, if only as a defence mechanism. Otherwise you would be unable to do your job."

In his letter, the aid worker expressed sympathy for the UN troops who are working in extremely harsh conditions.

"(The troops) are doing a good job under difficult circumstances", said Perera. "They sleep in an abandoned school, work insane hours guarding aid warehouses and keeping the lid on this notoriously volatile city while we try to feed people."