Pakistan calls for Global Push to Eliminate Poverty
'Pakistan Times' Federal Bureau

UNITED NATIONS: Pakistan, speaking for the Group of 77 (developing countries) and China, Tuesday called on the international community to strengthen the global partnership for development in a bid to eliminate poverty.

“Today, the world has the resources and the know-how to make poverty history,” senator Amjad Abbas, the Pakistani delate, told the UN General Assembly Second Committee (Economic and Financial).

Speaking in a debate on Eradication of Poverty, he said it was paradoxical that more than 800 million people went hungry every day in a world possessing wealth and food-production capabilities.

Nearly 2.5 billion of the world’s 6.3 billion people lacked access to basic sanitation, and 1 billion lacked access to safe drinking water.

Half the world lived on less than $2 a day, while those who had escaped extreme poverty—living on less than a dollar a day—had simply joined the “less than $2 a day” group, he said.

The progress made towards meeting poverty reduction targets had been uneven and slow.

The world had the resources and knowledge to make poverty history, Senator Abbas stressed.

Women’s empowerment remained central to achieving the anti-poverty Millennium Development Goals, and it was essential not only to recognize the role of women in eradicating poverty and achieving sustainable economic growth, but also to empower them with equal rights and to provide them with full access to education, training, employment opportunities, technology and financial resources, in line with the 1995 Beijing Platform for Action.

The development of human resources and capacity-building in science and technology, as well as easier access to the latest technologies, would help developing countries achieve the internationally agreed development targets, including the Millennium Goals, the Pakistani delegate added.●