Caritas Internationalis President Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga will join world leaders at the United Nations Headquarters to discuss better ways to lift millions of people out of poverty.
 
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has invited Cardinal Rodriguez to the High-level Event on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in New York on 25 September 2008 as a key representative of civil society.
 
The MDGs are a set of development targets launched in 2000 and aimed at significantly reducing poverty by 2015. At the halfway point in 2008, good progress has been made but on current projections the targets will be missed in some countries by over a hundred years, especially many in Africa. Climate change and the global food crisis are placing many of the success stories of development in peril.  
 
The High-level Event will be a forum for world leaders to review progress, identify gaps, and commit to concrete efforts, resources and mechanisms to bridge the gaps. 
 

Caritas Internationalis, the umbrella organization for 162 national Catholic charities, wants to see urgent commitments announced in order to meet the Goals by 2015.
 
Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez said, “I welcome the UN’s initiative to put the Millennium Development Goals back on track. The MDGs are a useful catalyst in ending the scandal of poverty but currently risk becoming victims of inaction. Failure to meet these targets in a world of such wealth is unthinkable yet will happen unless we take the right steps now.
 
“Eleven million children die each year in poverty from preventable causes. That’s 77 million children who will die over the next seven years from now to 2015 because of our failure to act today. We need specific plans and I welcome the UN Secretary General’s call to world leaders to announce at the High-level Event exactly what they’re going to do.
 
“We need to bridge the gap between those with the financial assets and those with the physical and human resources on the ground. Churches and faith-based organizations like Caritas are overlooked as a way to deliver development. A third of all children under five in developing countries are severely stunted because of hunger and world leaders are committed to doing something about it. The Church runs over 60,000 schools for 5.8 million infants and 90,000 primary schools for 28 million pupils. They could help feed the hungry with the right support.  That is the partnership needed to save lives. 

 “Climate change is putting our achievements on development at risk. The MDGs must be backed up by commitments to cut greenhouse gas emissions by industrialized countries by at least 25-40% by 2020. Caritas also wants increased financial support on top of existing pledges to go to developing countries to cope with the consequences of climate change.” 
 
Contact the Caritas Internationalis Head of Delegation in New York Joseph Donnelly Tel. +1 212 286 8939  or +1 917 747 0652
Email: caritasny@aol.com