MUMBAI: Five years ago the world leaders at the United Nations Millennium Summit made a pledge to improve lives around the world by 2015, including reducing global poverty by half.

The creation of eight Millennium Development Goals represented a global commitment addressing issues of hunger, health, child mortality, gender equality, education, environmental sustainability and global partnerships.

Next year the world will have only 10 more years left to achieve these goals. Today, with the clock ticking and one third of the time already gone, BBC World Service launches a global online vote in eight languages to find out whether the world cares, informs a media release.

It comes in the lead-up to a BBC World Service Trust/ Department for International Development conference about global poverty and the media on 24 November, at which Chancellor Gordon Brown and Secretary of State Hilary Benn are speaking, informs the release.

The online vote asks whether people have heard of the Millennium Development Goals and how aware they feel about the above mentioned issues and what they think about the amount of coverage the media gives to them.

The online vote also invites respondents to say which of the following they believe has done most to raise awareness of poverty in the developing world - Kofi Annan; Bono; Tony Blair; Nelson Mandela; Bob Gelfof; or George Bush. The results will be announced on 24 November.