UN’s ‘stand up’ against poverty campaign

The International Day of the Eradication of Poverty has been held on Wednesday, October 17, 2007 at the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) Conference Hall for the 20th time.
The event addressed poverty not only by reflecting on the problem but also by standing up and drawing the world’s attention. Abdoulie Janneh, UN Under-Secretary-General and Executive Secretary of ECA, said that the event would help raise awareness about the issue of poverty, which is also a key Millennium Development Goal (MDG), by bringing millions of people together to “Stand up against poverty”.
Mr. Janneh noted that few people realize huger and related diseases still claim more lives than AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis combined. He further explained eliminating poverty and hunger as the number one target of the MDGs. UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-Moon stressed the need to empower Sub-Sahara Africa countries, which are not on track to meet the Millennium Development Goals of halving poverty by 2015. These goals include creating a world where all children complete their elementary education; a world where people have access to safe drinking water, and families are protected from deadly disease like malaria. Working globally together to cut greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global warming and ensuring a world where people are no longer condemned to a life of extreme and egregious poverty also belongs to the goals of the Millennium. The representative of World Food Program (WFP) commented that his organization is working for the achievements of these goals through saving lives and boosting growth, providing meals to millions of hungry students globally as tackling poverty will not automatically take care of the hungry.
Dr Nehemie Mbahuliyemo, a representative from the World Health Organization (WHO), applauded good nutrition and adequate, well balanced diets combined with regular physical exercise as the cornerstones of good health. On the other hand, poor nutrition can lead to reduced immunity, increased susceptibility to disease, impaired physical and mental development, and reduced productivity. He said that in the developing countries, nutritional deficiencies or related conditions have always been associated with lack of adequate resources or poverty, repeated occurrence of natural and manmade disasters such as drought, floods, civil unrest, weak health service systems, low literacy rate, weak infrastructure and so on. He added that this situation is often compounded by high burden of communicable and/ or non-communicable diseases including HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.
The campaign has special significance in Ethiopia, where much of the population lives in absolute poverty. According to WFP, at present, there are some 300 million undernourished children in the world. In Ethiopia, the under-five mortality rate is 174 out of 1000 live births, making it the sixth highest rate in the world. Malnutrition amongst children still remains a hurdle to achieve the MDGs.
Last year alone, over 23 million people stood up and recited the stand-up pledge. This year, the campaign organizers are hoping that the number can be doubled and that records can be broken, said Mr. Janneh. UNICEF representative Bjorn Ljungqvist stated that the worst form of extreme poverty is going to bed hungry and to see your children go to sleep hungry. Fortunately there has been a steady progress in Ethiopia.
On Tuesday, October 23, 2007 a moment’s silence will be observed throughout the nation in order to draw attention to the urgent need to eradicate poverty.