National leaders urge concerted action to reach global anti-poverty goals

Five years after world leaders meeting at the United Nations adopted far-reaching Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) aimed at addressing a range of global ills, national leaders addressing the World Summit in New York this afternoon said more needs to be done to reach those targets.

Niger's Prime Minister, Hama Amadou, said it was important to acknowledge that "many countries, including mine," were far from achieving the MDGs, and indeed some had regressed, suffering from a decline in official development assistance and a crippling debt burden. Despite Niger's genuine economic potential, the country was in abject poverty and its people lived in despair. While working to end poverty nationally, Niger required international support, he stressed.

Bingu Wa Mutharika, the President of Malawi, said after setting out the MDGs, the UN ignored the need to establish new production structures in sub-Saharan Africa to supply the goods and services that were needed to meet those targets. "In short, the MDGs were based on the supply of services that do not exist in the poor countries. That is the greatest challenge for the MDGs," he said.

Guyana's President, Bharrat Jagdeo, said achieving the MDGs, while daunting, would provide the necessary foundation for national development. At the same time, he warned that "adequate economic and social progress cannot be achieved in the absence of a more comprehensive framework that encompasses significant development and investment flows, wider debt relief, more equitable trade and economic cooperation as well as the transfer of science and technology for development purposes."

Yoweri Museveni, the President of Uganda, said countries of the South give aid to the countries of the North by selling to them cheap unprocessed raw-materials. "In each kilogramme of coffee Uganda gives, at least, $9 to the countries of the North in the form of aid; this is in addition to the aid in jobs that are thus exported," he said.

Also addressing the meeting were Costa Rica's Vice-President Lineth Saborio; Turkmenistan's Deputy Prime Minister, Rashid Meredov; Singapore's Deputy Prime Minister, Prof. Jayakumar; Egypt's Foreign Minister, Ahmed Aboul Gheit; Myanmar's Foreign Minister, Nyan Win; Abdullah Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Minister of Information and Culture of the United Arab Emirates; Special Envoy of the Sultan of Oman, Sayyid Haitham Bin Tariq Al-Said; Tunisia's Foreign Minister, Abdelwaheb Abdallah; Raymond Ramazani Baya, Foreign Minister of Democratic Republic of the Congo; Siosiua 'Utoikamanu, Finance Minister of Tonga; Papua New Guinea's Foreign Minister, Rabbie Langanai Namaliu, Kcmg; Sudan's Foreign Minister, Mustafa Osman Ismail; Mauritania's Development Minister, Mohamed Ould El Abed; Shukri Mohammad Ghanem, Secretary of Libya's General People's Committee; Somalia's Foreign Minister, Abdullahi Sheikh Ismail; Mario Alberto Fortin Midence, the Foreign Minister of Honduras; and Yemen's Foreign Minister, Abubakr Al-Qirbi.

Representatives of a number of major regional groups as well as several other intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) also spoke.