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Asia-Pacific region crucial in global fight against poverty: Ban Ki-moon

Asia-Pacific region crucial in global fight against poverty: Ban Ki-moon

President of Kazakhstan opens Meeting
The Asia-Pacific region – with most of the world’s people and some of its fastest-growing economies – is crucial to meeting global anti-poverty targets, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today told regional leaders meeting in Kazakhstan.

“With Asia-Pacific now home to two thirds of the world’s population, the level of progress achieved in your region will be a critical factor in determining whether our global efforts to reach the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) will succeed or fail,” he said, in a message delivered by José Antonio Ocampo, Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs at the annual meeting of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP) in Almaty.

Officials from 62 UNESCAP member governments are in Almaty for the week-long meeting – 60 years after the body, then known as the Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East, was founded in Shanghai.

The MDGs, time-bound targets for slashing poverty and other ills by the year 2015, are at the top of the meeting’s agenda.

“I am encouraged by the fact that, in recent decades, the countries of Asia and the Pacific have seen a record number of people lifted out of poverty,” Mr. Ban said. “Still, over 600 million fellow human beings who have not benefited from the region’s economic gains continue to face a daily struggle to survive,” he said.

He urged redoubled efforts to fight extreme poverty within UNESCAP’s “Green Growth,” or environmentally sustainable approach.

To help the countries which are lagging behind, Government ministers from across the region have expressed support for a “road map that aims to have all countries ‘marginally’ off-track to be back on-track towards reaching MDGs by 2009, those ‘moderately’ off-track to be in line by 2011, and those in the ‘severely’ off-track category on target by the end of 2013.

At today’s meeting, Kim Hak-Su, Executive Secretary of UNESCAP, applauded the endorsement of the plan. “Your commitment is vital to the regional road map,” he told the ministers. “2007 marks the midway point to 2015. It is important that the countries come together to ensure the targets are met,” he said.

The road-map is expected to be endorsed by the Commission session when it concludes on Wednesday, 23 May.