UNITED NATIONS (AP) - Average income and military spending in the world's wealthiest countries have jumped in the past 15 years, but foreign aid is down, the UN Development Program said Tuesday.

The figures appeared on the UNDP website a day before the start of the Group of Eight summit in Scotland, and were meant to highlight how the richest countries were falling well short of promises to increase aid to 0.7 per cent of their national incomes.

The agency warned that the world's wealthiest countries - the United States, Japan, Germany, Britain, France, Italy and Canada - will miss their target of meeting the 0.7 goal in 2015 "by a huge margin," if they don't change course.

While a member of the G8, Russia was not included in the figures because it is not a donor country.

"The simple question facing the G7 summit is not can they afford to act but whether the world can afford the costs of inaction," said the five-page briefing note, from UNDP's Human Development Report Office.

British Prime Minister <FORM class=yqin action=http://yq.search.yahoo.com/search method=post>    </FORM>Tony Blair, who holds the G8 presidency and hosts the three-day summit opening Wednesday, has called for a massive increase in aid to Africa. The UNDP said that government aid contributions per person were up only slightly to sub-Saharan Africa from 1990 to 2003 - from $13 to $16 US.

According to the agency, per capital income in the seven wealthiest countries rose by $7,835 from 1990 to 2004.

Military spending also rose to $978 per person, up $168. The United States was mostly responsible for that, recording a $379 per person increase in military spending to $1,549.

But aid spending per person by the rich countries fell by $7 to $74.

"Without discounting the obvious importance of military budgets for national security, there are strong grounds for questioning these priorities," the briefing note said.

The only countries that recorded aid increases were the United States, with a $4 jump to $63 per person, and Britain, with an increase of $52 to $114.

France led the seven countries by spending $122 per person a year. But that was down dramatically from the comparative figure from 1990, which was $146.

The UNDP note singled out Canada as the best placed to set an ambitious target because it is the only country among the seven that recorded fiscal surpluses from 2002-2004.