"In 2002, for the sixth consecutive year, developing countries made a net transfer of financial resources to other countries," UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said at the opening of special two-day General Assembly session.

"Moreover," he said, "last year's was the largest such negative resource transfer ever: almost 200 billion dollars."

Funds "should be moving from developed countries to developing countries, but these numbers tell us the opposite is happening," he added.

An international summit in New York in 2000 established goals -- known as the Millennium Development Goals -- aimed at eliminating extreme poverty and famine, promoting sexual equality and the enfranchisement of women, and fighting AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria by 2015.

A high-profile follow up meeting of leaders some 60 nations in Monterrey, Mexico, in March 2002, fleshed out the means of implementing those goals. The event was assisted by US President George W. Bush, Cuban President Fidel Castro, and scores of other world leaders.

In Monterrey, the United States and the European Union announced increased aid to Third World development, and an ongoing dialogue began between rich and poor nations. Developing countries were also told what they needed to do to help themselves.

However, said Annan, "while overseas development aid has increased, it is still far short of what is required to meet the Millennium Development Goals."

Resources "that could be promoting investment and growth in developing countries, or building schools and hospitals, or supporting other steps towards the Millennium Development Goals, are instead being transferred abroad," Annan told the assembly.

"Despite promising investment opportunities in the developing world and improved economic policies, fear and uncertainty are keeping resources from being deployed where they are needed most.