Progress has been made in the past year on a number of commitments, but significant backsliding has occurred in other target areas of Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 8. While there are advances to report in increasing access to new technologies, in duty-free access for exports from developing countries and, to a lesser extent, in efforts to increase access to more affordable essential medicines, the international community is not fully delivering on its commitments to development assistance and to reaching an agreement on development oriented multilateral trade. The differences in directions taken and the disparity in results weaken the cohesiveness of the global partnership. As many developing countries are redoubling their efforts to accelerate the progress towards achieving the MDGs by 2015, more policy coherence and consistency is needed within the global partnership to support the endeavours of developing countries.

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