As we pass the midway point in the first decade of the 21st Century, more than a billion people are gripped in poverty of the first order – abject poverty – where there are not enough resources to provide food, shelter or even the hope of comfort.  

Forty million men, women and children are infected with HIV/AIDS. One hundred and four million children do not go to primary school. Eight hundred and sixty million adults – mostly women – cannot read or write. One billion, four hundred million people do not have access to safe water. And, every year, millions die unnecessarily from poverty-related causes. – Deaths which can be prevented with basic medical health care, proper nutrition and clean water.

Looking back over the past five years, we can only conclude the efforts to attack poverty and promote sustainable development, as pledged in the UN Millennium Declaration, have been grossly inadequate. Typically, governments all too often fail to address the needs of their citizens. And aid from rich countries is, more often than not, inadequate in both quality and quantity, and promises of debt cancellation have not materialized. Perhaps most damning of all is the fact that rich, developed countries have yet to act on their repeated pledges to change unfair trade practices.

“I can’t get out of the press. These people can’t get into the press. So let’s redirect the attention a little bit. We have the potential to end poverty (in Africa) in our time. — What is more exciting than that? The potential’s there. We gotta go for it.”

                                              – Brad Pitt, Actor