Annan urges group of G8 nations to ‘stretch out its helping hand’ to the poor

Reminding the G8 industrialized countries that the world expects them to take the lead in efforts to solve humanity’s greatest problems, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan has appealed to the participants in this week’s Gleneagles summit to fulfil the recently “rekindled hope” that they will help the world’s poorest peoples.

In an op-ed article published on Wednesday in major newspapers in all eight countries of the group, Mr. Annan noted that the meeting being held in Gleneagles, United Kingdom, is particularly well-timed. In September international leaders will gather for the World Summit at UN Headquarters in New York to discuss how to both reform the Organization and improve the welfare, security and dignity of people worldwide.

“All that is needed now is the leadership to make it happen,” Mr. Annan wrote, outlining such shared goals as countering climate change, protecting civilians from violence and oppression, and improving the lot of the world’s poor.

Earlier this year, in a report entitled ‘In Larger Freedom,’ Mr. Annan laid out “the agenda of concrete decisions” that UN Member States must take by September if they are to provide the world with “a new century of security, prosperity and freedom.”

The Secretary-General reiterated his earlier calls for the G8 members to increase their official development aid, deepen their debt relief and reform global trade rules and conditions so that the least developed States, especially in Africa, can make crucial economic and social gains.

“Some decisions announced in the past two months have rekindled hope that the developed world will indeed stretch out its helping hand and enable poorer countries to share the opportunities of globalization,” Mr. Annan wrote. “Now it’s up to the G8 to fulfil that hope.”

He also welcomed the decision of the Gleneagles participants to make Africa and climate change priority issues during this week’s meeting.

Mr. Annan said that “if we have the political will” the world can achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), a set of eight targets drawn up five years ago for slashing socio-economic ills by 2015. Those goals include halving extreme poverty and hunger, cutting child mortality rates by two-thirds, and achieving universal primary education.

He added that it is not only donor nations, such as those in the G8, that need to help in the cause. Developing countries are expected to fight “an implacable war against corruption,” strengthen their governance and make better use of their own resources.