15 October 2025
Mr. Chair,
The Holy See welcomes this debate as an important opportunity to affirm that poverty is the “greatest global challenge and an indispensable requirement for sustainable development.”[1]
A decade has passed since the adoption of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, in which the international community made the pledge to end poverty in all its forms everywhere. Yet poverty and hunger still plague our world. It is an uncomfortable contradiction that, even after a decade of technological and economic progress, more than 800 million people continue to live in extreme poverty and one in 12 people still suffer from hunger.[2]
Despite the shocking nature of these statistics, it is important to recognize that they are only numbers and will never truly reflect the profound human suffering inflicted by poverty and hunger on individuals, their families and entire communities. Poverty and hunger are not merely economic conditions to be measured by statistics. Above all, they represent a grave affront to the inherent God-given dignity of the human person. They infringe upon a person’s fundamental human rights, above all, the right to life itself, and are a failure of the international community.
It is for this reason that the words of Pope Leo XIV in his recent apostolic exhortation resonate with urgency: “the dignity of every human person must be respected today, not tomorrow, and the extreme poverty of all those to whom this dignity is denied should constantly weigh upon our consciences”.[3]
Our efforts to eradicate poverty and hunger must be grounded in the imperative of protecting human dignity and pursuing integral human development for all.
Mr. Chair,
My Delegation would like to emphasize that poverty is not inevitable. It is the result of structural causes that must be identified and addressed in order to be eliminated. This requires international cooperation and coordination, global solidarity and actionable measures to create conditions that enable people to flourish in every dimension of their lives.
The key areas of action are clear and include investing in quality education, creating opportunities for decent work, and establishing comprehensive social protections systems. Such measures promote economic well-being and the integral development of the human person.
However, this clarity of our solutions stands in stark contrast to the lack of political will. This failure is most starkly illustrated by the tragic misallocation of global resources. In this regard Pope Leo has expressed concern that “Financial resources and innovative technologies are being diverted from the eradication of poverty and hunger in the world to the manufacture and trade of weapons.”[4] Despite the existence of the necessary funds to eradicate poverty and hunger, there has been an increasing diversion of these funds towards “instruments of death”[5] rather than towards tools of integral human development.
This reality reveals a painful paradox: resources that should be used to nourish, educate and heal instead cause further pain and suffering. This subversion of priorities not only prolongs the suffering of those living in poverty but also fuels conflict and instability.
Mr. Chair,
The eradication of poverty and hunger is not merely a desirable aspiration; it a moral obligation that must be fulfilled. Such a moral obligation can only be realised through the implementation of concrete measures to ensure that commitments, policies and priorities are reoriented to place the human person at the very core of all activities.
Thank you.
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[1] A/RES/70/1
[2] Cfr. United Nations, The Sustainable Development Goals Report, 2025.
[3] Pope Leo XIV, Dilexi te, 92.
[4] Pope Leo XIV, Message to Participants in the 44th Session of the FAO Conference, 2025.
[5] Pope Fraccis, Urbi et orbi, 2023.
