VATICAN CITY (CNS): The failure of a UN summit earlier this month to take concrete action against poverty represented a “missed opportunity of staggering proportions”, said the head of the worldwide Catholic charities organisation, Caritas Internationalis.
“The hope for achievements targeted for 2015 was daunting, but politically perfectly possible in a world with the wealth and the technology to dent dehumanising poverty,” Caritas secretary-general, Duncan MacLaren, said in a September 15 statement.
The intended focus of the September 14-16 UN World Summit in New York had been to review the Millennium Development Goals on alleviating poverty and investing in health, education and the environment in the poorest countries of the world.
While the final document from the UN summit recommitted to the goal of cutting poverty in half by 2015 and addressed issues on UN reform, terrorism, human rights and peace building, some critics said the document failed to fully address rich nations’ previous commitments to fight world poverty.
The summit instead boiled down to “commitments made and opportunities squandered”, Mr MacLaren said.
On September 12, Pope Benedict XVI appealed to world leaders to “find appropriate solutions to reach the great goals that have been set previously, in the spirit of harmony and generous solidarity”.
