Caritas has campaigned continuously for poverty eradication and an end to hunger. Advocacy has been targeted on the need to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, which aim to halve world poverty by 2015.

Caritas has taken its messages on economic justice and food security to the United Nations, the G8 countries, theWorld Economic Forum and theWorld Social Forum.

CI’s UN delegation in NewYork has taken a leading role in campaigning on the MDGs, working closely with the UN’s Millennium Development Campaign and Development Programme, the UK Mission to the UN and others.

CI’s UN delegate participated at the Civil G8 Forumin Japan in 2008 as part of the NGOs and Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) calling on governments to honour their commitments. The President and Secretary General also lobbied G8 and other Ambassadors to the Holy See at ameeting hosted by the British Ambassador to the Holy See.

In September 2008, CI President Cardinal Rodríguez was among a select group of civil society representatives invited to speak at the United Nations High-level Event on the MDGs in NewYork. The Cardinal called for renewed action on the Millennium Development Goals, saying the world was suffering from a “poverty of the imagination”.

Caritas was selected as one of 13 leading international NGOs (and the only faith-based organisation) to serve on the UN General Assembly President’s MDG 2010 Summit Task Force. Fr Ambroise Tine, Director of Caritas Senegal, was as one of 24 speakers at the Summit Round Table in September.

Exercising a preferential option for the poor, Caritas prioritises the needs of the poorest, wherever they may be. Caritas therefore works with the poor not only in the world’s poorest countries, but also in the richest. Caritas has for example been active in supporting antipoverty campaigning in Europe, participating in the European Year 2010 for combating poverty and social exclusion, for which the Secretary General served as a European Ambassador.