Today, in South Africa, a child will be born. Her mother will hold her and feed her just as any mother would anywhere in the world. But to be born a child in today's Africa is to begin life centuries away from the prosperity that one small part of humanity has achieved. It is to live under conditions that many of us in this House would consider inhuman.

Truly, it is as if it were a tale of two planets.

I speak of a girl in South Africa, but I might equally well have mentioned a baby boy or girl in Sierra Leone. No one today is unaware of this divide between the worlds' rich and poor. No one today can claim ignorance of the cost that this divide imposes on the poor and dispossessed - who are no less deserving of human dignity, fundamental freedoms, security, food and education than any of us. The cost, however, is not borne by them alone.
Ultimately, it is borne by all of us - rich and poor, men and women of all races and religions.

Currently, Sub Saharan Africa is home to just a quarter of the world's very poor. But that ratio is rising steadily, aggravated by the scourge of AIDS.  To meet the global poverty reduction target annual economic growth would have to rise to more than 7 percent, much higher than past performance. But even that is still small.

Another challenge to meeting the target is how to measure poverty, which has other dimensions than simply average income. Growth is not a gain if it destroys the environment, fails to engage women or drums families from secure, but rural lives to a frightening, crime-ridden, marginal and city-slum experience.

Child poverty is the principal determinant of life chances. They are less likely to attend school regularly - or get qualifications and go to college; more likely to be forced into in the worst jobs - if any job at all; and more likely to be victims of crime.

The Millennium Development Goals are attainable. But poverty is an old enemy with many faces. It was the Great Mahatma Gandhi who said that 'poverty was the worst form of violence.'

On this Day, let us recognise that extreme poverty anywhere is a threat to human security everywhere. Let us recall that poverty is a denial of human rights. Let us summon the will to do it. Let me end with some words from Mother Theresa who said the following:

"We think sometimes that poverty is only being hungry, naked and homeless.
The poverty of being unwanted, unloved and uncared for is the greatest poverty. We must start in our own homes to remedy this kind of poverty." So let us start in this House.



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