NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- A set of ambitious goals to cut global poverty in half by 2015 are "clearly" off track and do not stand a chance of being met unless rich countries can fill a funding gap and agree to coordinate development policies better, World Bank Head James Wolfensohn said on Tuesday.

In an interview with Reuters, Wolfensohn, the bank's president, said next weekend's annual shareholders meetings of the bank and the International Monetary Fund are crucial for winning donor support to boost the sluggish pace of development.

The United Nation's millennium development goals, which outline areas for improvement such as education and health in a plan to drastically reduce the number of people living on less than a dollar a day, were endorsed by world leaders at a development summit in Mexico earlier this year. "They're clearly not on track," Wolfensohn said in a telephone interview from London. "I'm hoping these meetings will deal with scaling up and better coordination of activities. If we don't, the chances are we will not meet them."

African countries are furthest from meeting the goals, a report by the bank earlier this year found.

Wolfensohn said he believes the rich countries that provide most of the donations for development funding have become more aware of the need to help poor countries after the Sept. 11 attacks. He has often said there is a direct link between the poverty that exists in the home countries of some of the hijackers who carried out those attacks and the frustration they feel toward wealthy countries like the United States.

?????? Donors Can Do More ????? But Wolfensohn said the donors can still do a lot more. For a start, they can clarify a promise made at the G8 leaders summit in Kananaskis, Canada, earlier this year on debt relief for $1 billion in extra funding.

None of this money has yet arrived in the trust fund for the debt relief program, known as the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries initiative, or HIPC. The G8 has provided no clear indication of when it is likely to arrive.

Only six of a targeted 38 countries have completed the HIPC initiative since it was introduced in 1996, and when the next couple of countries in the line qualify to receive full debt relief, the trust fund will be out of cash.

Among the six countries that have actually completed the program, many still need further funding to ensure their economies are not being crushed under the burden of the debt load. If the donors do not come good on their promises, HIPC will be in trouble, so Wolfensohn is looking this weekend for the G7 to explain what they meant by the $1 billion promise and when it is likely to arrive. "Everyone is expecting a clarification about the Kananaskis promise," he said. "I think we're hopeful about what they're going to do."

Finance ministers from the G7, which comprises France, Germany, the United States, the UK, Italy, Japan and Canada, are to meet in Washington on Friday.

Nongovernmental organizations have blamed the bank and the International Monetary Fund for their part in a program that the organizations say is making miserable progress.

They say the bank and fund have used unrealistic estimates of how commodity prices and the world economy would perform to work out how much money each country needed in debt relief.

Wolfensohn said he is also waiting for clarification from the United States about how the millennium challenge account will be used. This new account promises to boost by several billions of dollars the sum the world's richest country gives to development. But U.S. officials have yet to outline exactly how the fund will be used.

Wolfensohn has said he hopes the money will be used in coordination with projects run by the World Bank.

Getting agreement on coordinating aid programs is another aim for the weekend. The bank has said that too often, poor countries are overwhelmed with bureaucracy in dealing with different aid programs from governments, the bank and aid agencies.