We can be the generation that ends poverty.

Musicians will.i.am and Angelique Kidjo, actress Kristin Davis and model Elle Macpherson helped launch a new campaign to cut global poverty in half by 2015.


Kidjo and Black Eyed Peas members will.i.am and apl.de.ap performed a new song written for the Global Call to Action against Poverty called "in my name" outside the United Nations, where world leaders are gathered this week.

THE SECRETARY-GENERAL OF THE UNITED NATIONS-- REMARKS FOR THE OXFAM GLOBAL CALL TO ACTION AGAINST POVERTY

--AS DELIVERED--

New York, 25 September 2008

Dear friends and allies in the fight against poverty,

Good morning, everyone. I am proud to have added my name to this pledge wall, a powerful symbol in our mobilization to make poverty history.

In this way, the Global Call to Action Against Poverty is holding Governments to the promises they made in the year 2000.

[I’m just coming out from the opening session of the High level Event on the Millennium Development Goals. We are now going to have all-day long roundtables. I sincerely hope that the leaders of the world will make a bold and generous commitment to eradicating poverty.]

Let me quote from the Millennium Declaration they adopted. They vowed to “spare no effort to free our fellow men, women and children from the abject and dehumanizing conditions of extreme poverty”.

This is a profound pledge which will be even more meaningful when we fulfill it.

I sincerely hope that the leaders will keep their promises.

I’m deeply grateful to Oxfam, Save the Children and Comic Relief for their support for the Global Call to Action Against Poverty. We need all of our partners if we hope to succeed.

I signed my name as a citizen of Korea, but above all as a citizen of the world. As Secretary-General, of the United Nations, I will be taking your message back to the many world leaders I am meeting here this week. I am determined to push them to keep the promises their Governments made here eight years ago.

After the meetings are over, we have to continue to press for action. So I welcome this campaign and I pledge my full support, now and in the future, until we reach the Millennium Development Goals, our vision for a better world in the 21st century.

Thank you very much.

//ENDS

We can be the generation that ends poverty.

In September 2000, at the United Nations Millennium Summit, world leaders agreed to the Millennium Development Goals, a set of time-bound and measurable goals for combating poverty, hunger, disease, illiteracy, environmental degradation and discrimination against women.

The deadline to achieve the Millennium Development Goals is September 2015 -- we must act now if we want to achieve these goals by their deadline.

Upload your video now to join the chorus with Will.i.am, John Legend, Scarlett Johansson and others around the world.

Your simple video message will join thousands of others in the call to end poverty in our lifetime.


PARTICIPATING NONPROFIT ORGANIZATIONS: Oxfam, GCAP, Save the Children, Comic Relief, Engender Health, March of Dimes, 1Sky, CARE, Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric Aids Foundation, Global Campaign for Education, Concern, ONE Campaign