Ending Poverty
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1 billion people live on $1. a day.

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10 million children die of hunger every year.

NPR

Justice Talking

2006

 

Hunger—Some Facts and Figures

 

† There has been enough food to feed the entire global population for nearly half a century.

† More than 800 million people live with chronic hunger.

† Each day 24,000 people die of hunger.

† More than 300 million children suffer from chronic hunger—100 million of them do not attend school—2/3 of those not attending school are girls.

† Every 5 seconds a child is lost to her family because malnutrition has rendered her too weak to resist disease.

† For US$.16 you can buy a meal for a school child.

† The financial cost of ending hunger in the world is relatively modest. The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) estimates that it would  

  cost just US$13 billion to provide basic nutrition and health for everyone in the world.

 

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UN Summit to Review Global Progress on Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)


S. Ann Scholz, UN/NGO Director

When world leaders convene in September for the 60th session of the General Assembly, five years after agreeing to an ambitious plan to battle poverty and other global problems, they will be charting the future of the United Nations and its role in those efforts, Secretary-General Kofi Annan says.

Mr. Annan describes the September 14 -16, 2005 review of the Millennium Declaration and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) as an event of decisive importance. “The decisions to be taken at the meeting may determine the whole future of the United Nations. Even more importantly, they will offer us our best - perhaps our only - chance to ensure a safer, more just and more prosperous world in the new century.”

The Millennium Development Goals aim to halve extreme poverty and hunger, achieve universal education and promote gender equality. They also seek to reduce infant and maternal mortality, fight HIV/AIDS and other diseases, ensure environmental sustainability, and develop a global partnership for development - all by 2015.

In his five-year assessment, “In Larger Freedom,” the Secretary-General describes progress toward achieving the MDGs as uneven at best and calls on world leaders to reach a new global deal to tackle the challenges of development, security, human rights, and to reform the United Nations. Mr. Annan’s assessment draws on a number of studies including Investing in Development: A Practical Plan to Achieve the Millennium Development Goals, authored by Professor Jeffrey Sachs, and the UN Millennium Project.

While governments prepare their responses to the Secretary-General’s challenge, NGOs, including the School Sisters of Notre Dame, are monitoring country-level progress, building MDG Campaigns and crafting their own critiques of national and international efforts.

 

 

Act Now to Make Poverty History
S. Ann Scholz, UN/NGO Director

What are you doing to end extreme poverty? School Sisters of Notre Dame in Bavaria joined 40,000 other people who sent postcards to the German Ministry of Economy in support of just trade policies.

Sisters in Slovenia are sharing the good news about the Global Call to Action Against Poverty, the Millennium Development Goals Campaign and Educating to End Poverty. Visit their Web site and click on VZGAJATI, DA BO KONEC REVŠČINE to learn more.

Sisters in North America are signing on to the United States One Campaign and the Canadian Campaign to Make Poverty History. They pledge to pray the Prayer for the Millennium Goals on ONE day of each month. Tell ONE other person - not an SSND - about this effort each month. Do ONE simple action each month to promote the Global Call Action Against Poverty.

Non-governmental organizations in more than 100 countries have launched campaigns to make poverty history. Find out what is happening in your country, http://www.whiteband.org/national .

Everyone is invited to take action on poverty in 2005 by wearing a white band on these global white band action days.
Copyright © 2005 by SSND