The United Nations warned on Friday that millions of people will be pushed into poverty if the current worldwide economic crisis persists.

In its latest report, entitled Voices of the Vulnerable: the Economic Crisis from the Ground Up, the world body said that the economic crisis is not over for hundreds of millions of people around the globe, despite the "green shoots" of recovery.

The "near poor" are in danger of becoming the "new poor," it warned.

Because of the crisis, 100 million more people are likely to have been pushed below the poverty line, and global unemployment could also increase by up to 61 million between 2007 and 2009, it said.

Over the past year, there has been an increase of 100 million people suffering from hunger while infant mortality may increase by an additional 200,000 to 400,000 each year from now to 2015, if the crisis persists, according to the report.

The report is part of a larger United Nations initiative called the Global Impact and Vulnerability Alert System, referred to as GIVAS, which GIVAS is being developed to provide early, real-time data to the international community on how external shocks, such as the economic crisis, are affecting the welfare of the vulnerable and poor.

GIVAS will fill the information gap that currently exists between the time when a global crisis impacts vulnerable populations and when decision makers get information through existing channels.

The report warned that new red flags should be watched for because they may signal further trouble. Policymakers need to watch for the further spread and evolution of the H1N1 influenza pandemic to countries already devastated by the economic crisis or the onset of new natural disasters that may be the last straw breaking the back of overstretched populations and governments.

The release of the report coincides with the start of the 64th session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York and precedes the meeting of the G-20, which is scheduled to take place in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

(Xinhua News Agency September 19, 2009)