Global spotlight on helping poor
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon opened a summit Monday with a plea
to the assembled Presidents, Prime Ministers and kings to use their
power to meet UN goals to help the world’s poorest by 2015.
A farmer sits on a cow-pulled cart on the outskirts of Hanoi
on September 21, 2010. Asia has slashed the number of people
living in extreme poverty, but leads the world in
malnourishment and is struggling to meet ambitious
development goals set at the United Nations, a UN report
said. AFP |
Ten years after world leaders set the most ambitious goals ever to
tackle global poverty, they gathered again to spur action to meet the
deadline which the UN says will be difficult, if not impossible, in some
cases.
General Assembly President Joseph Deiss opened the summit saying, “We
must achieve the Millennium Development Goals. We want to achieve them.
And we can achieve them.”
For centuries, the plight of the world’s poor had been ignored but
with the turn of the new millennium, leaders pledged to begin tackling
poverty, disease, ignorance and inequality. They vowed to reduce extreme
poverty by half, ensure that every child has a primary school education,
reverse the HIV/AIDS pandemic, reduce maternal mortality by
three-quarters and child mortality by two-thirds. Goals called for
cutting by half the number of people without access to clean water and
basic sanitation all by 2015. They also set goals to promote equality
for women, protect the environment,increase development aid, and open
the global trading and financial system.
“We brought new urgency to an age-old mission,” Ban said. “And now,
we have real results. New thinking and path-breaking public-private
partnerships. Dramatic increases in school enrollment. Expanded access
to clean water. Better control of disease. The spread of technology from
mobile to green.”
But Ban calls the advances ‘fragile’ and declared ‘the clock is
ticking, with much more to do.’ He urged the leaders to deliver the
needed resources ‘above all by exercising political leadership.’ More
than 140 world leaders were expected at the summit.
The three-day summit on the goals, known as the MDGs, will be
followed by the annual ministerial meeting of the General Assembly . In
advance of this week’s summit, diplomats from the 192 UN member states
agreed on the document to be adopted by the leaders which spells out
specific actions to accelerate implementation of each of the eight
Millennium Development Goals, known as the MDGs, in the next five years.
“We are convinced that the Millennium Development Goals can be
achieved, including in the poorest countries, with renewed commitment,
effective implementation, and intensified collective action by all
member states and other relevant stakeholders at both domestic and
international levels.”
Many recent reports show that the world’s poorest countries,
especially in sub - Saharan Africa, have made little progress in
eradicating poverty.
And in Africa, Asia and Latin America there also has been a lack of
progress in reducing mother and child deaths, providing clean water and
sanitation.
AP |