(Adds Ban Ki-moon press conference, NGO response)

By Laura MacInnis GENEVA, July 2 (Reuters) - The world will struggle to meet U.N. goals to eradicate extreme poverty by 2015, but it can be done if rich countries boost their international aid budgets, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said on Monday.

Presenting a report at the mid-point to the deadline, Ban blamed a lack of development funds for "mixed" progress toward the commitments made in 2000 to cut infant mortality, reduce hunger, combat HIV and boost primary school enrolment.

"The lack of any significant increase in official development assistance since 2004 makes it impossible, even for well-governed countries, to meet the Millennium Development Goals," the U.N. chief said.

While fast Asian economic growth had helped cut the number of people living on $1 a day worldwide, the U.N. report said challenges remained in improving access to safe drinking-water, boosting child and maternal survival rates, preserving biodiversity and getting more women into the paid workforce.

Sub-Saharan Africa, the poorest corner of the world, had struggled to keep up with other regions, and had urgent needs in its fight against HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis, as well as in basic medical care and education.

Despite such obstacles, Ban said it should be possible to reach the international goals by 2015.

"If we take firmly committed, concerted actions I think this is achievable," he told journalists in Geneva, saying developing countries needed to make achieving the goals a central part of their government plans.

Wealthy countries should "act now" to bolster international aid flows, and the Group of Eight industrialised nations should meet their pledge to double aid to Africa by 2010, he said.

Only five countries -- Denmark, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden -- have met a long-standing U.N. target of devoting 0.7 percent of gross national income to development aid. Last year, donors gave net aid disbursements worth $103.9 billion, or 0.3 percent of their combined national income.

The U.N. report noted significant progress toward the Millennium target of halving the proportion of people living in extreme poverty, a goal it said should be attainable by 2015 if recent trends continue.

About 980 million people, or 19 percent of the developing world population, were living on an income of less than $1 per day in 2004, compared to 1.25 billion people in 1990, when 32 percent were in that category.

The anti-poverty ActionAid group noted there were 800 million hungry people worldwide in 2000 and 854 million now.

The Millennium target on improving safe drinking water and basic sanitation access is also far from being met, the U.N. report said.

For a factbox detailing statistics in the report, please see UN-DEVELOPMENT/FACTBOX [L01648831] (Additional reporting by Claudia Parsons at the United Nations in New York and Robert Evans in Geneva)

AlertNet news is provided by