Brown seeks urgent action against poverty

from The Sydney Morning Herald

NEW YORK: The British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, has called for a new "moral" crusade to deliver global pledges to tackle poverty and disease in the developing world.

Mr Brown said he wanted the world to evoke the "same spirit" that saw John F. Kennedy call for the creation of a Peace Corps in the 1960s, to forge a "new coalition for justice".

In a speech at the United Nations headquarters, Mr Brown called on world leaders to take "emergency action" to ensure that they meet the Millennium Development Goals that were agreed in 2000.

The eight goals set a series of ambitious targets, including cutting infant mortality, tackling poverty and providing primary education in the developing world by 2015. "The goals the world has set are not being met and we face an emergency - a development emergency - and we need emergency action if we are to meet them," Mr Brown said.

The goal of halving infant mortality would not be met until 2050, rather than 2015, unless urgent action was taken, he said, while ensuring every child was in primary education would not happen until 2100 at the current rate of progress.

"The calendar says we are half way from 2000 to 2015. But the reality is that we are a million miles away from success … We cannot allow our promises that became pledges to descend into just aspirations, and then wishful thinking, and then only words that symbolise broken promises."

He wanted to mobilise "people power" to ensure the world met its goals and called for a wide-ranging alliance bringing together governments, business, faith groups and ordinary people to make sure progress was made.