World leaders to give new impetus to fight against poverty

from AFP via Google

UNITED NATIONS — UN chief Ban Ki-moon was Thursday to host a summit here to galvanize world support for achieving key poverty-reduction goals by 2015 despite soaring energy and food prices compounded by the financial crisis.

Nearly 100 world leaders are to join top private sector officials, including billionaire Microsoft founder Bill Gates, foundations and civil society, to pledge new commitments to revive the flagging battle to the achieve Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

Among those expected at the plenary session and 40 partners events on malaria, education and health will be British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, his Chinese counterpart Wen Jiabao, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, World Health Organization head Margaret Chan, World Bank President Robert Zoellick and U2 singer and global anti-poverty campaign Bono.

In 2000, the United Nations adopted eight goals to be met by all the world's countries by 2015.

They include eradicating extreme poverty and hunger, achieving universal primary education, promoting gender equality, reducing child mortality, improving maternal health, combating diseases such as HIV/AIDS, ensuring environmental sustainability and creating global partnerships for development.

Despite some progress, "We're still significantly off track on a number of MDGs," British Secretary of State for International Development Douglas Alexander told reporters Wednesday, citing "the 75 million kids without no classroom and teachers to teach them, more 55 percent of them young girls."

In other setbacks, more than 500,000 mothers in developing countries die in childbirth or from pregnancy complications every year and almost half of the developing world population still lacks sanitation facilities.

"I hope the meeting would mark an occasion whereby words of commitments can be turned into plans for action," Alexander said. "We will be keen to see at the conclusion of the summit practical actions being taken by a number of different states to make sure that we step up our commitments at this point, half way through 2015."

Monday a high-level meeting on Africa's development ended with call for rich countries to honor their pledge to double their annual aid to the continent, which is trailing the rest of the world in achieving the MDGs.

"We are concerned that, at the current rate, the commitment of doubling aid to Africa by 2010 as articulated at the (2005) G8 summit in Gleneagles (Scotland) will not be reached," a statement issued at the end of the meeting said.

"We call for the fulfillment of all official development assistance-related commitments, including the commitments made by many developed countries to achieve the target of 0.7 percent of gross national income for official development assistance by 2015," it added.

The OECD said rich countries were behind in their aid commitments and needed to increase the level by 12 percent by 2010.

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