UN Will Halve Poverty By 2015

World leaders have promised to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) to halve global poverty and hunger. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon opened the MDG meeting on September 20th. He asked all countries to try their hardest to help the world’s poor. The promise to halve poverty was made 10 years ago. The goal then was to halve poverty by 2015. Mr Ban urged those at the meeting to focus on providing clean water and basic education. He said that “this is an achievement we can be proud of”.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy made a speech about how the world was not keeping its promise. He said many countries were using the global financial crisis as an excuse not to give money, saying: "We have no right to shelter behind the economic crisis…We have so many millions suffering from AIDS…but they could be looked after.” Bolivia’s president Evo Morales asked world leaders to end the unfair global distribution of wealth. He said the biggest cause of poverty was rich countries not helping poor ones.

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