MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

U.N. Summit: Fight to end hunger merits top priority.

The fight to eradicate hunger and poverty is a moral obligation that merits top priority, the leaders of Spain, France, Brazil and Chile said here Monday at a summit they convened in the hopes of spurring coordinated efforts to combat malnutrition and indigence worldwide.

The meeting, which reviewed progress toward the Millennium Development Goals, was held on the eve of the debate of the 59th session of the U.N. General Assembly with the support of the world organization.

U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan said that debates about alternative modes of funding anti-poverty efforts - which range from taxing financial transactions or the arms trade to making better use of migrants' remittances - must not "becomes an excuse for paralysis. We need to move quickly." The U.N. estimates that more than 1 billion people worldwide live on less than $1 a day and more than 840 million suffer from malnutrition.

Annan warned that the struggle against poverty and hunger is moving very slowly, saying that fighting these problems "is not just a matter of money." It is a battle, he said, that "must also be waged on many fronts, from education to women's rights and much more."

For his part, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said the Millennium Goals "could end up a dead letter, if there is no political will," which "would have enormous consequences for international peace and security." "It's time this commitment became tangible and active," said Lula, as the Brazilian president is known, while his Chilean counterpart, Ricardo Lagos, said the world cannot accept a harrowing situation "that is within our capacity to correct." "What we need is to give this task priority," said Lagos, noting that the $50 billion needed to meet the Millennium Goals "are not hard to find," although it will become more difficult every year.

Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said that sustainable human development can be achieved based on growth with fairness, respect for the environment, equality between the sexes, freedom and respect for cultural diversity. After remarking that countries can do more to eradicate poverty, the Spanish premier vowed to double his government's aid to developing countries to 0.5 percent of GDP and up to 0.7 of the gross domestic product "if the Spanish people elect me to a second term."

French President Jacques Chrirac also alluded to that goal, noting that his country has pledged to reach the 0.7 percent of GDP benchmark by 2012.

Chirac said the "billion men, women and children who are imprisoned by extreme poverty and hunger do not live on a distant planet or in another age," adding that "trying to ignore them is not an alternative." About 100 countries and numerous international organizations took part in the summit, with some 50 heads of state or government present at the meeting.

Latin American presidents attending the summit were from Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay.