International aid agency Oxfam on Monday called on world leaders to redouble their efforts to fight the impact of rising food and fuel prices, which it said are eroding real gains in poverty reduction.
Oxfam said in a statement ahead of a crucial United Nations meeting in New York this week to assess the state of the world's fight against global poverty that higher food prices indirectly affect progress towards many of the other goals as well, not leastbecause hunger negatively impacts on peoples' ability to work, stay healthy and for children to go to school.
"In the face of these new and daunting challenges we need a dramatic shift in political will and ambition. This meeting must deliver concrete plans on how to keep these anti-poverty targets in our sights," Alison Woodhead, Oxfam International's spokeswoman, said in a statement issued in Nairobi.
The latest UN estimates suggested that the number of malnourished people worldwide has increased by 75 million, to 925 million, reversing progress towards the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of halving world hungers by 2015.
Oxfam urged world leaders to treat this as an emergency summit and step up their efforts in the fight against poverty.
"Leaders must not just reissue empty promises, with their fingers crossed behind their backs. This is a poverty emergency that requires exactly the same attention and response as the financial crisis grabbing the headlines. Significant progress has been made but much more needs to be done," said Woodhead.
The organization said remarkable progress is possible, even in the poorest countries. "In Rwanda the number of children dying from malaria has been cut by two-thirds in the last two years alone," it said.
"A boy born in Tanzania today is 25 percent less likely to die by his first birthday than his sister born just four years ago," said Oxfam.
However on current trends, Oxfam warned that the MDGs will not be achieved. An additional 150 billion dollars per year is needed by 2010 to meet all the goals, less than double the amount spent (85 billion dollars) to bail out a single insurance group, AIG.
"Given the turmoil in financial markets, rich countries will be tempted to tighten their belts. But we must do more, not less, if we are to prevent the real danger that progress on the MDGs will be wiped out," Woodhead said.
This week, Oxfam and other international agencies will launch a major new campaigning action called "in my name", calling on citizens to hold their leaders accountable for promises made in the year 2000.
Source:Xinhua
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