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Matt25
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salt.claretianpubs.org/sjnews/2005/09/sjn0509f.html
In September 2000, in a flood of millennial optimism, more than 150 heads of state at the UN’s Millennium Summit in New York set themselves eight goals to tackle poverty, including an overarching target to halve world poverty by 2015—the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Five years later, the international community prepares to meet in New York once again September 14 - 16. But this upcoming summit, initially conceived to review progress towards the MDGs, has been renamed, a host of new issues have been added to the agenda, and the conference risks straying from its original purpose, charge relief and development specialists at the United Kingdom’s Catholic Agency for Overseas Development (CAFOD).
In September 2000, in a flood of millennial optimism, more than 150 heads of state at the UN’s Millennium Summit in New York set themselves eight goals to tackle poverty, including an overarching target to halve world poverty by 2015—the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Five years later, the international community prepares to meet in New York once again September 14 - 16. But this upcoming summit, initially conceived to review progress towards the MDGs, has been renamed, a host of new issues have been added to the agenda, and the conference risks straying from its original purpose, charge relief and development specialists at the United Kingdom’s Catholic Agency for Overseas Development (CAFOD).
"A serious commitment to the MDGs will mean rich nations agreeing to increase aid, cancel debt, and rewrite unfair trade rules—the key aims of the Make Poverty History campaign," said CAFOD's George Gelber...."Leaders should not allow the conference to shift towards a narrower focus dominated by terrorism and questions about the possible proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. The most dangerous weapon of mass destruction in the past few decades has been the gun," said Gelber...Ambitious steps are needed now to ensure that world leaders address the most urgent concerns of the vast majority of people in the world: poverty, infectious disease, environmental degradation, insecurity in their own neighbourhoods, human rights violations and crime, as well as terrorism.