By Holy See Mission
Statement of the
Holy See
67th session of the
United Nations General Assembly
Before the
Second Committee,
Eradication of Poverty
New York, 12
November 2012
Mr. Chairman,
The eradication
of poverty remains a primordial concern for the United Nations. At the Rio plus
20 Summit last June, the outcome document highlighted poverty eradication as an
‘overarching objective’ and the ‘greatest challenge facing the world today’.
The outcome document further emphasized the need for poverty reduction to be
pursued within a framework of sustainable development in which there is a
commitment to equitable growth and to proper stewardship of the environment. This
document recognized that people are at the center of sustainable development
and that we must continue to strive for a world that is just, equitable and
which includes all people- from the most vulnerable to the most helpless.
The
Holy See has supported international action and economic policies aimed at the
eradication of poverty and pursued within a framework of sustainable
development. As long ago as the 1960s, Pope Paul VI in his encyclical on the
Development of Peoples (Populorum
Progressio), called for the creation of a market economy capable of
including within its range all people, and not just the better off. He called
for efforts to build what he described as ‘a more human world for all, a world
in which all will be able to give and receive, without one group making
progress at the expense of the other’. This call, made 45 years ago, is the
essence of equitable growth and continues to be just as relevant today.
More
recently, Pope Benedict XVI in his encyclical Charity in Truth (Caritas in Veritate) made a plea for
what he described as a ‘responsible stewardship over nature’. He urged the technologically advanced
countries to lower their energy consumption and to improve energy efficiency
and called for a worldwide redistribution of energy resources so that countries
lacking them can have access to them. He then called for everyone- all
countries and all peoples- to recognize responsibly the impact they are having
on future generations and particularly on the many young people in the poorer
nations. He described this responsibility as a ‘global’ one, and one that is
vital in order to assure future generations that they are not depleted of the
resources with which to live. This call for responsible stewardship of the
environment is integral to any sustainable development strategy.
As we approach
the target date of 2015 for achievement of the Millenium Development Goals that
were set in 2000, we need to take stock of progress made towards each of these
goals, with special emphasis on the poorest developing countries, where poverty
is most acute. The first MDG- to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger- is a crucial
first step in the broader fight against poverty. Within this MDG are three
sub-categories, each of which is essential to assuring a minimum human dignity:
first, to reduce by half those who
earn less than $1 per day; second, to
provide full and productive employment for all; and, third, to reduce by half the proportion of people suffering from
hunger.
This
MDG, and the others that follow, will be difficult to achieve in the current
global climate. However, we can learn from those developing countries whose
poverty reduction strategies have been proving successful over the last decade
or more. In a global economy that has been stagnating since the financial
crisis of 2008-2009, finding ways to revive economic growth is an essential first
step-though not a sufficient step. As was noted in the development dialogue
last month in the General Assembly, other dimensions are also important: pro-poor
strategies that focus on the needs of the poorest segments in areas such as the
provision of drinking water, housing, health, and education services; there is
a premium too on good governance to enable the efficient implementation of
these strategies and to ensure they reach the intended beneficiaries; and
finally, in an increasingly globalized world of interdependence, we need to
find mechanisms and institutions to enable
more effective policy coordination than has been evident over the past decade
or so since the MDGs were first agreed.
Mr. Chairman,
In
closing, my Delegation would like to re-emphasize the observations we made in
Rio in regard to an authentic sustainable development strategy. The key pillars
of a sustainable development strategy- the economic, social, and environmental-
must also be grounded in a clear vision of what the human person truly is- or what
my Delegation would call an ethical dimension of the human person. And just as
monitoring indicators are needed to measure progress towards agreed indicators
in the three pillars of sustainable development, we would propose that
analogous indicators be developed for such an ethical dimension as well.
Thank
you, Mr. Chairman.
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