The first Global Monitoring Report was released. A joint production of the Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF), it contained a stark warning – poor people in many countries face little hope of emerging from their lives of poverty and deprivation unless urgent action is taken to address the root causes of poverty. The report also warned that under current trends most developing countries will fail to meet most of the Millennium Development Goals – the international targets for reducing poverty and improving services for the poor by the year 2015.