European leaders attending a day's High-Level Event on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in New York on Thursday called for more assistance to poor countries to help them combat poverty.
European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown were among nearly 100 world leaders attending the event convened by UN Chief Ban Ki-moon and General Assembly President Miguel D'Escoto.

"To achieve the MDGs, the key first step is to deliver more aid, and more effective aid," Barroso told world leaders.
He reaffirmed the European Union's commitment to increasing aid flows to 0.56 per cent of gross domestic product (GNP) by 2010 and to 0.7 per cent GNP by 2015.
In face of the global food crisis, the European Commission has proposed to create a new "Food Facility" for the developing countries," he said.
"Apart from the 800 million euros we have already allocated in short-term measures, the Facility means an extra one billion euros to increase agricultural production in developing countries," he said.
"This would get poor farmers the fertilizers and seeds they need to grow the additional crops the people need," he said.
The British Prime Minister called for "global solutions" to deal with "global problems," including the current financial crisis.
"We cannot solve the food shortages that face many continents without involving Africa and developing countries," he said. "We cannot solve climate change without involving Africa and developing countries. We cannot solve the pressure on resources and energy without involving Africa and the developing countries."
"And Africa and our developing countries are not the problem --they are part of the very solution to today's problem," Premier Brown said.
He said that "a casual uncaring corrosive pass-by indifference" stood in the way of progress towards the MDGs.
Premier Brown called for a million health workers, saving the lives of three million mothers and seven million children, that all malaria deaths be stopped by 2015, and for 24 million more children to attend school by 2010.
He also called for seeds and fertilizers to enable Africa not only to feed itself, but other parts of the world as well.

"In the past, feed the world meant that we helped to feed Africa. In future, if we do things right, we would do best by enabling Africa to feed the world," said the Prime Minister.
The high-level event, held on the sidelines of the UN assembly's annual debate, seeks to pinpoint gaps and identify steps to take to accelerate progress towards achieving the MDGs, a set of eight anti-poverty goals that world leaders agreed in 2000 to achieve by2015.
A recent UN report found that soaring food and fuel prices and the global economic downturn are impeding advances in such targets as eradicating extreme poverty and hunger, achieving universal primary education and reducing child mortality, jeopardizing the likelihood of achieving some of the Goals.
Nearly two dozen of the world's biggest philanthropic foundations would also take part in Thursday's meeting, which comes on the heels of a high-level gathering held on Monday to examine Africa's development needs.