Let there be no more gaps
Reducing global poverty is the biggest challenge we face today. As the UN's recent MDG Gap Taskforce highlighted -- it will take the sustained and committed efforts of rich countries -- north and south, as well as the private sector, faith groups, and civil society from across the world for us to meet this monumental challenge.
At the start of the new millennium, world leaders gathered at the United Nations to make a promise -- that we would do everything within our power to halve extreme poverty by 2015.
The Millennium Development Goals agreed at that summit set clear and measurable targets on a range of vitally important issues such as increasing the number of children in school, improving health care, cutting maternal and child deaths, combating major diseases, and stopping environmental degradation.
All of these things make a huge difference to the quality of people's lives across the world, and we have seen big changes. There are now 41 million more children in school, 3 million more children are surviving every year, and 2 million more people are receiving treatment for AIDS.
But -- halfway to 2015 and in the run-up to this month's meeting on the MDGs at the United Nations -- we now need to ensure that the promises of the international community do not become mere aspirations.
We must work together, in this 60th anniversary year of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, to deliver the MDGs so that every person has health, education, shelter and security.
We know that real progress can be made. Here in Bangladesh, you have already achieved gender parity in primary and secondary schooling (MDG 3). Bangladesh is also on track towards achieving the goals of halving the proportion of population below the national poverty line (MDG 1).
It is also achieving universal primary school enrolment (MDG 2), and reducing the under-five child mortality and the infant mortality rate (MDG 4). The country is also on schedule for some of the MDG 6 targets, such as containing the spread of communicable diseases like HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis, and also those of MDG 7 such as reducing the proportion of population without safe drinking water, and reforestation.
But despite the progress we have made so far, and despite the goodwill and the good work of millions, our goals are simply not being met, and there is much more we need to do.
Bangladesh is behind schedule on reducing poverty, measured by the share of poorest quintile in national income/consumption (MDG 1); on completion of primary schooling (MDG 2); on gender parity in tertiary education (MDG 3); on reducing maternal mortality (MDG 5); and on some of the targets for MDGs 6 and 7.
And then there is the threat of climate change reversing the gains already made. Bangladesh is particularly vulnerable to impacts such as sea level rise and salinity, floods and drought. Cyclone Sidr last November illustrated all too starkly how extreme weather events are becoming more frequent and more intense.
Therefore, each and every one of us needs to act, today, to make 2008 a turning point.
Earlier this month, the UK and Bangladesh governments jointly hosted a high-level conference on climate change in London. This has only helped put the international spotlight on how Bangladesh is adapting to climate change.
It has also has re-emphasised how much more needs to be done, both domestically and globally to stop things from getting worse.
At the global level, the United Nations meeting on September 25 will bring together representatives of G8 and European governments with their African, Asian and Latin American counterparts, as well as faith leaders, business leaders and civil society organisations from across the world -- and we must commit to step up the pace and to work relentlessly, year on year, until we meet our goals.
We have the technology. We have the knowledge. We have the wealth. All we need now is the will to ensure there are no more gaps. Only by acting together can we succeed. We cannot fail.
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