Papua New Guinea's resident coordinator for the United Nations says it's likely PNG won't fully achieve any of the Millennium Development Goals which are set to conclude at the end of next year.
Today marks 500 days of action in achieving the eight goals, which range from halving extreme poverty rates to halting the spread of HIV/AIDS.
Roy Trivedy says PNG has made good progress on some fronts since it signed the goals in 2000 such as increasing the number of children at primary school and offering free health care.
But he says compared to many other countries, PNG initially lacked the systems to track progress and implement some of the actions.
"We didn't have all of the health care systems all of the education systems set up and so on and it's taken a few years to get some of the baseline information to be able to judge what's our starting point, how do we make further progress. Many of those things are now in place, but there's a long way to go."
Roy Trivedy says malnutrition continues to be a huge problem in parts of the country, many children still don't go to school, and maternal health is poor.
