Asia has slashed the number of people living in extreme poverty but is still struggling to meet ambitious development goals set at the United Nations, a UN report said on Monday.

"One of the region's greatest MDG successes has been a reduction in the number of people living on less than 1.25 dollars a day from 1.5 billion to 947 million between 1990 and 2005," the UN report on Asia's progress in the Millennium Development Goals said. "However, the region remains home to two-thirds of the world's poor and hungry, with one in six malnourished, and it has been slow to reduce child mortality and to improve maternal health."