SECRETARY-GENERAL ADDS HIS NAME TO OXFAM’S GLOBAL CALL TO ACTION AGAINST POVERTY,

EXPRESSES DETERMINATION TO HOLD LEADERS ACCOUNTABLE TO MILLENNIUM PROMISES

Following are UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s remarks for the Oxfam Global Call to Action against Poverty, today, in New York:

Good morning, everyone.  I am proud to have added my name to this pledge wall, a powerful symbol in our mobilization to make poverty history.

In this way, the Global Call to Action against Poverty is holding Governments to the promises they made in the year 2000.

I’m just coming out from the opening session of the high-level event on the Millennium Development Goals.  We are now going to have all-day long roundtables.  I sincerely hope that the leaders of the world will make a bold and generous commitment to eradicating poverty.

Let me quote from the Millennium Declaration they adopted.  They vowed to “spare no effort to free our fellow men, women and children from the abject and dehumanizing conditions of extreme poverty”.

This is a profound pledge which will be even more meaningful when we fulfill it.

I sincerely hope that the leaders will keep their promises.

I’m deeply grateful to Oxfam, Save the Children and Comic Relief for their support for the Global Call to Action against Poverty.  We need all of our partners if we hope to succeed.

I signed my name as a citizen of Korea, but above all as a citizen of the world.  As Secretary-General, of the United Nations, I will be taking your message back to the many world leaders I am meeting here this week.  I am determined to push them to keep the promises their Governments made here eight years ago.

After the meetings are over, we have to continue to press for action.  So I welcome this campaign and I pledge my full support, now and in the future, until we reach the Millennium Development Goals, our vision for a better world in the twenty-first century.

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For information media • not an official record