* Leaders urged to honour aid, protectionism pledges
* U.N. body says risk global targets will be missed
By Fiona Shaikh
LONDON, March 30 (Reuters) - World leaders must honour their pledges on aid and protectionism at this week's G20 summit or risk missing global targets to improve life in the poorest nations, according to the head of the UN Millennium Campaign.
Salil Shetty, Global Director of the Millennium Campaign, an offshoot of the United Nations which lobbies governments to do their bit to meet the Millennium Development Goals, says less talk and more action are vital to achieve the goals by 2015.
"All the goals are at risk if we don't see significant progress at the G20 meeting," Shetty told Reuters.
The UN organisation is calling for rich countries to set aside 0.7 percent of Gross National Income in aid per year -- a commitment first made in 1970 by the world's 22 richest nations, but that so far has been honoured by only 5 of them.
It also wants countries to resist turning to protectionism to get through the economic crisis, and is calling for an end to trade subsidies and other measures that distort global markets, such as price dumping.
A draft version of the G20 communique calls for the completion of the Doha round of trade talks, and for giving the International Monetary Fund more money to help poor countries, financed partly by selling some of its gold reserves.
"The proposal to recapitalise the IMF: we welcome that, but we don't want a situation where we increase debt levels. We don't want to create a new debt crisis," Shetty said.
He called for rich nations to provide a $300 billion one-off fund for 2009/2010 and for a reduction in the strict conditions that are often imposed on poor countries that receive aid from foreign donors.
He also said rich countries' aid pledges should be maintained in absolute dollar terms rather than as a percentage of GNI due to widespread economic contraction.
CREDIT DROUGHT
The Millennium Development Goals were agreed by 189 countries in 2000 and consist of 8 targets to improve conditions for the world's poorest people by 2015.
They include ending hunger and extreme poverty, giving all children a primary school education, improving gender equality, reducing child mortality and improving maternal health, combating disease and safeguarding the environment.
Shetty said that while many countries had made progress in reaching those aims, that was now being endangered by the threat of the first global economic contraction since World War Two.
The Millennium Campaign reckons the global downturn will force an additional 53 million people to live on less than $2 per day this year.
It also estimates that developing countries will face an economic contraction of between $270 billion and $700 billion as commodity prices fall, global trade collapse, trade finance and capital flows dry up and remittances drop.
"This is the context in which we are making a call to the G20 leaders to compensate for some of the damage they have caused to poor people," Shetty said.
"There's enough talk of stock values going down and money values going down but not enough about the human cost of the crisis."
And while Shetty hopes the London G20 summit will bear fruit, he noted that pledges made at past meetings had been forgotten all too quickly.
"Many have increased protectionism and not kept their aid pledges. I hope this time they'll be more serious about it."