By Kang Shin-who
Staff Reporter
Asha-Rose Migiro, the third deputy secretary-general of the United Nations (U.N.), said closer cooperation between global leaders is essential to keeping a growing number of people from falling into poverty amid the ongoing economic crises across the world.
In a lecture on implementing U.N. development agendas in the face of global financial crises at Kyung Hee University, Migiro expressed concern that the current financial slump could increase world poverty and food shortages in particular.
``The stock market and the cost of commodities are very volatile and banks are reluctant to give loans, which in turn is causing a recession. It is hitting the poor countries even harder,’’ Migiro said. ``Collective and concrete global partnership is needed to tackle this crisis. The globe should come together to seek answers for the problems.’’
She said that some 100 million people who escaped poverty thanks to the U.N.’s help are expected to slip back into it and 200,000 are likely to lose their jobs.
Migiro, from Tanzania, mentioned two initiatives for ``Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)’’ by U.N. Secretary-general Ban Ki-moon, while calling Ban a very gifted person from Korea during the lecture. ``Ban recently launched an MDGs Africa-steering group and convened world leaders to take initiatives to accelerate gaining the goals,’’ she said. ``Inter-linkages between development and peace is crucial. Peace does not merely mean absence of war as peace is largely influenced by development and its sustainability.’’
MDGs have eight goals, planned to be achieved by 2015 in accordance with the world’s main development challenges. Among them are to ``eradicate extreme poverty and hunger,’’ ``achieve universal primary education,’’ ``promote gender equality and empower women’’ ``reduce child mortality,’’ ``Improve maternal health,’’ and ``combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases,’’
She said the projects provide a compelling platform for larger international development agendas, which are comprehensive and touch on almost all aspect of life, ranging from children’s rights, development sustainability, IT and more.
``Implementation of MDGs has been successful, however it is not still working well in African countries. Especially we need to put more efforts into providing more employment opportunities and healthcare,’’ she said.
She said the U.N. has long and mid-term plans to fight food crises. ``Under the mid-term plan, provisions of fertilizers and seeds are being distributed, helping agricultural implementations. In the long-term, the U.N. will touch on each country’s policies and financing issues.’’
Born in 1956, Migiro, a lawyer and politician, was awarded her current position in January 2007.