ELIMINATING POVERTY OBLIGATION RESPONSIBILITY SHARED BY ALL, SAYS DEPUTY SECRETARY-GENERAL, AT LAUNCH OF ANTI-POVERTY INITIATIVE
Press Release
DSG/SM/47
ELIMINATING POVERTY OBLIGATION RESPONSIBILITY SHARED BY ALL, SAYS DEPUTY SECRETARY-GENERAL, AT LAUNCH OF ANTI-POVERTY INITIATIVE
19990427 Following are the remarks of Deputy Secretary-General Louise Fréchette to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)/Cisco Systems Initiative on the Eradication of Poverty in New York on 27 April:I am pleased to be here for the launch of this important initiative. On the eve of the new millennium, the eradication of poverty is an objective that goes to the heart of the mission of the United Nations.
I want to thank John Chambers, President and CEO of Cisco Systems, for his leadership and for making available technology that will enable people worldwide to follow the events in October in the fight against poverty. Thanks to the Web site provided by Cisco, continuous information will provide an important tool in achieving greater knowledge and understanding of world poverty and, thereby, in working to eradicate it.
I would also like to thank Danny Glover and Harry Belafonte for their tireless efforts in mobilizing support. Both of them provide inspiring examples of how a single voice, when it speaks out of conviction, can make itself heard halfway across the world.
The challenges on the road to eradicating poverty may seem enormous, but then so are the successes that have been achieved so far. Today, a child born in a developing country can expect to live 16 years longer than if it had been born 35 years ago. Since 1960, infant mortality has been more than halved. The share of rural families with access to safe water has risen from 10 per cent to 60 per cent.
These achievements came about through the commitment of developing countries to improve the quality of life of their people; through important advances in medicine, science and technology; but, also, through more than 50 years of global development cooperation, in which the United Nations, governments, non-governmental organizations and thousands of committed individuals all played their part.
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Today, the growing number of partnerships between the United Nations and the private sector provides us with unprecedented resources, expertise and ingenuity to achieve even more in future. I hope this initiative will be a showcase for what can be done when the United Nations system and business join hands and each brings to their common endeavour what it best knows how to do.
Through partnerships such as this one, we can win greater support worldwide for the work of the United Nations and of the many other institutions seeking to address the plight of the poor worldwide. We can help people realize how much can be done to improve prospects for the millions of marginalized people who, at present, live without hope. We can convey the message that there is only one world -- ours -- and one community -- the global community. And, that eliminating poverty from the face of the Earth is an obligation and a responsibility we all share.
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