1. “Progress in the most impoverished parts of our world enriches us all.” -Barack Obama, President, United States of America
2. “On this International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, let us recognize that extreme poverty anywhere is a threat to human security everywhere. Let us recall that poverty is a denial of human rights. For the first time in history, in this age of unprecedented wealth and technical prowess, we have the power to save humanity from this shameful scourge. Let us summon the will to do it.” -Kofi Annan, former UN Secretary-General
3. “Because there is global insecurity, nations are engaged in a mad arms race, spending billions of dollars wastefully on instruments of destruction, when millions are starving. And yet, just a fraction of what is extended so obscenely on defense budgets would make a real difference in enabling God’s children to fill their stomachs, be educated, and be given the chance to lead fulfilled and happy lives.” -Desmond Tutu, South African social rights activist
4. “Poverty is the worst form of violence.” -Mahatma Gandhi, Indian independence activist
5. “The world is very different now. For man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty, and all forms of human life.” -John F. Kenney, former U.S. president
6. “My attitude to peace is rather based on the Burmese definition of peace – it really means removing all the negative factors that destroy peace in this world. So peace does not mean just putting an end to violence or to war, but to all other factors that threaten peace, such as discrimination, such as inequality, poverty.” -Aung San Suu Kyi, Burmese rights activist
7. “It turns out that advancing equal opportunity and economic empowerment is both morally right and good economics, because discrimination, poverty and ignorance restrict growth, while investments in education, infrastructure and scientific and technological research increase it, creating more good jobs and new wealth for all of us.” -Bill Clinton, former U.S. president
8. “If we continue on the trend we’re on, we can reduce extreme poverty by more than 60 percent—lifting more than 700 million people out of dollar-and-a-quarter a day poverty and back from the brink of hunger and malnutrition. But if we accelerate our progress from 3 percent annual reduction to over 6 percent and focus on key turnarounds in some difficult countries, we could get a 90 percent reduction. We could essentially eliminate dollar-and-a-quarter head count poverty.” -Rajiv Shah, USAID administrator
9. “It is but a short step from hunger to starvation, from disease to death.” -Ban Ki Moon, UN Secretary-General
10. “In this new century, many of the world’s poorest countries remain imprisoned, enslaved and in chains. They are trapped in the prison of poverty. It is time to set them free. Like slavery and apartheid, poverty is not natural. It is man-made and it can be overcome and eradicated by the actions of human beings.” -Nelson Mandela, former president of South Africa
11. “Wars are bred by poverty and oppression. Continued peace is possible only in a relatively free and prosperous world.” -George C. Marshall, former U.S. secretary of state
12. “The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have enough; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.” -Franklin Delano Roosevelt, former U.S. president
13. “We are here because we share a fundamental belief: that poverty, illiteracy, disease and inequality do not belong in the twenty-first century. We share a common purpose: to eradicate these ills for the benefit of all. And we share a common tool to achieve this: the Millennium Development Goals.” -Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, president of Liberia
14. “Poverty is unnecessary.” -Muhammad Yunis, economist and Nobel Peace Prize recipient
15. “Our fortunes rise together, and they fall together. ‘All men are brothers,’ said the Analects. We have a collective responsibility—to bring about a more stable and more prosperous world, a world in which every person in every country can reach their full potential.” -Christine Lagarde, International Monetary Fund managing director
16. “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron.” -Dwight D. Eisenhower, former U.S. president
17. “Hunger is actually the worst weapon of mass destruction. It claims millions of victims each year.” – Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, former president of Brazil
18. “The times talk to us of so much poverty in the world and this is a scandal. Poverty in the world is a scandal. In a world where there is so much wealth, so many resources to feed everyone, it is unfathomable that there are so many hungry children, that there are so many children without an education, so many poor persons. Poverty today is a cry.” -Pope Francis I
19. “Development is among the most important long-term multilateral agendas existing today. As we all know, lasting peace cannot be achieved unless large population groups find ways in which to break out of poverty.” – Pal Schmitt, former president of Hungary
20. “It has been hard to muster the resources to support fledgling democracies– or to help the world’s most desperate – the AIDS orphan in Uganda, the refugee fleeing Zimbabwe, the young woman who has been trafficked into the sex trade in Southeast Asia; the world’s poorest in Haiti. Yet this assistance – together with the compassionate works of private charities – people of conscience and people of faith – has shown the soul of our country.” -Condoleezza Rice, former U.S. secretary of state
– Kelley Calkins
Sources: UN, ThinkProgress, BrainyQuotes, BrainyQuote, BrainyQuote, CNN, USAID, UN News, BBC, Better World, Better World, Better World, IMF, U.S. Global Leadership Coalition, People’s Daily Online, Poverty USA
Photo: Russian Radio