Manila, Philippines (BBN)- Asian Development Bank (ADB) President Haruhiko Kuroda will address a global summit on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in New York next week to call for concerted action to achieve all the goals.
Mr. Kuroda will be among the world leaders who will gather at the United Nations on 20-22 September to accelerate progress towards the MDGs, an ADB announcement said on Thursday.
The MDGs were established in 2000, following the Millennium Summit in New York, where the world’s governments committed themselves to a series of development targets to be achieved by 2015.
During his stay in New York, Mr. Kuroda will also join representatives of the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP), and the UN Development Program (UNDP) to jointly launch a report on the status of the MDGs in Asia and the Pacific.
Despite remarkable progress in reducing poverty in Asia and the Pacific, about 900 million people - more than two-thirds of the world’s poor - still struggle on less than $1.25 a day.
BBN/SSR/AD-16Sept10-10:59 am (BST)