School

The UN World Summit (or M+5 summit) took place from 14-16 September in New York and brought together the world's heads of state and governments in the biggest ever conference of world leaders.

The Summit was held to review the Millennium Declaration Ð'- including commitments on development, human rights and security Ð'- that world leaders made five years ago.

While world leaders came to make commitments on big issues of global security and UN reform, the one area where governments acted boldly was to agree on their collective responsibility to protect civilians facing genocide and other similar atrocities. However, world leaders missed a crucial chance for countries to truly commit to ending the terrible poverty, injustice and suffering that kill millions of people every year.

What was Oxfam calling for?

Oxfam joined hundreds of other organizations from around the world to demand that world leaders at the UN Summit agree to the following:

A ambitious plan to meet and exceed the Millennium Goals by taking action on aid, trade, debt and free basic services and by honoring commitments they have already made. Five years after world leaders created the Millennium Development Goals to halve global poverty and hunger by 2015, we are in danger of missing these targets. The first target Ð'- achieving equal numbers of girls as boys in primary school, has already been missed.

An affirmation of governments' Responsibility to Protect civilians in armed conflict Ð'- and their shared responsibility to take collective action when national authorities are unwilling or unable to do so.

A commitment to an Arms Trade Treaty based on human rights and international humanitarian law. The arms trade is out of control, undermining development. Currently, there are approximately 640 million guns in circulation Ð'- one for every ten people Ð'- and around eight million new guns and 14 billion bullets are made every year. On average, around one million guns are lost or stolen every year.

An agreement to improve vastly the international response to all humanitarian disasters. UN member states should contribute an additional total US$1 billion each year to an enhanced Central Emergency Revolving Fund (CERF) to prevent deadly crises such as the Niger food crisis from ever occurring.

What you can do

White Band Day 2:

On 10 September, thousands of people across the world celebrated White Band Day 2 by holding breakfast meetings with politicians, all night vigils, rallies outside state buildings, jamborees, petitions and early morning press calls. World leaders were urged to Wake Up to the voices of people demanding action to end poverty before they depart for the UN World Summit. These actions were mirrored in New York on September 9, the opening day of the Summit, with a stunt including alarm clocks to "Wake-Up" the delegates. Millions of people also wore white bands Ð'- the symbol of the campaign Ð'- to show their solidarity for an end to poverty.

Email action:

Send an email from the Global Call to Action Against Poverty (GCAP) website to the UN Secretary-General and world leaders to demand that they take concrete steps at the 2005 World Summit to end poverty