 |
|||||||||
 |
|||||||||
|
|||||||||
October
3, 2005 
VOL.
43, NO. 17Oakland,
CA
U.N.: More than 1 billion live on less than $1 a day
As the United Nations ended its Sept. 14-16 World Summit
on meeting development goals, leaders from Africa, Asia and Latin America
lamented that there has been scant progress in meeting U.N. pledges set
five years ago to reduce poverty and disease.
A grim U.N. report said that about 40 percent of the world’s people
still struggle to survive on less than $2 a day. More than one billion
people live on less than $1 a day.
Underlying many global problems is the widening gap between rich and poor
in many part of the world and the inability of the poorest to escape the
poverty trap, said leaders gathered in New York for the summit.
A 35-page document adopted Sept. 16 by the 151 world leaders in attendance
included a commitment by all governments to achieve development goals.
But the final document dropped a call for countries that haven’t
done so – including the United States – “to make concrete
efforts” to earmark 0.7 percent of their gross domestic product
to development assistance.
“Our second millennium faces the reality of growing poverty in two-thirds
of the planet,” said Ecuador’s President Alfredo Palacio.
“Water is becoming scarce, holes deplete the ozone layer and along
with biodiversity, the Amazon is being destroyed. Entire nations are condemned
to wander as disinherited immigrants, mortal illnesses hover over humanity,
and terrorism lurks.”
Ketty
Adong, a 15-year-old displaced Ugandan who is six months pregnant, holds
her severely malnourished child at a therapeutic feeding centre run by
Medicines Sans Frontieres in Lira, northern Uganda, Sept. 15. The United
Nations estimates that more than 1.3 million people have been forced from
their homes in Uganda by the Lord’s Resistance Army, known for violent
abduction and forced enlistment of children as soldiers, labourers and,
in the case of girls, sexual slaves.
RNS PHOTO/REUTERS/Hudson Apunyo
A
child plays with an empty plate as women prepare food for malnourished
children outside Chiradzulu hospital in southern Malawi, Sept. 19. Crop
failure has left 4.2 million people facing food shortages, according to
United Nations World Food Programme officials.
RNS PHOTO/REUTERS/Eldson Chagara
Southern
Sudanese women hold their children as they seek medical attention at a
health centre in southern Sudan, Sept. 11. Eight months after peace was
agreed between rebels and the government, the region is recovering from
its worst food shortage since a famine killed at least 60,000 people seven
years ago.
RNS PHOTO/REUTERS/David Mwangi
