The plight of the world's poorest countries has shown little improvement overall since a new United Nations plan of action was launched in Brussels in May 2001, the UN admitted. Presenting a report on implementation of the action plan to UN economic and social council meeting in Geneva, Anwarul Chowdhury, UN high representative for least developed countries (LDCs), singled out Aids, debt and rich countries farm subsidies as the major obstacles to reducing poverty.