Dear
Members, Friends and Visitors,
This
May 15, 2005, for the 12th time, we are Celebrating
Worldwide “The International Day of Families”.
I wished that we could have a lot of good reasons
for Celebrations.
Despite many efforts done by Governments and NGOs,
as well as significant contributions done by Academia,
Parliamentarians and Business Community, Families
in all parts of the world continue to be threatened
by poverty, violence, intolerance, armed conflicts,
ignorance, global warming, drug abuse and crime,
all of which adversely affect the family’s
quality of life.
A decade ago, the Copenhagen Summit for Social Development
raised many hopes and high expectations that the
commitments done would promote a society for all
with equity and equality of opportunity, foster
social justice, cohesion and integration, promote
productive employment, empower social groups making
up its citizenship.
The three core issues of the Summit – poverty,
employment and social integration - dealt with Social
Development in a very comprehensive manner. It included
improvements in individuals and family well-being
through the enjoyment of human rights, the provision
of economic opportunities, the reduction of poverty
and the access to social protection and social services.
As we entered the 21st Century the concept of Globalization
was on the top of all agendas. Globalization should
be made to work for the benefit of everyone, to
eradicate poverty and hunger globally, ensure protection
and promotion of human rights globally, ensure the
protection of our global environment and enforce
social standards in the workplace globally. Globalization
and advances of technology should create significant
opportunities for people to connect, share and learn
from each other.
The Millennium Summit held in 2000, brought to light
the Millennium Declaration and the Millennium Development
Goals selecting eight specific areas, spelling out
quantitative targets and a timeframe to achieve
these goals. World leaders were confident that humanity
could make measurable progress towards peace, security,
disarmament, human rights, democracy, good governance,
eradicate poverty, hunger, achieve universal primary
education, promote gender equality and empower women,
reduce child mortality, improve maternal health,
combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases, ensure
environmental sustainability and develop a global
partnership for development.
Five years later, much has happened, but still numbers
and facts are far from acceptable:
o
1,3 billion people live in extreme poverty.
o Almost half of humanity is trying to survive
on less than US$ 2 a day.
o 786 million people suffer from chronic hunger.
o 60 million people suffer from famine (extreme
hunger).
o 11 million children die before reaching their
fifth birthday.
o 40 million is the number of men, women and children
HIV/AIDS infected.
o 20 million is the number of men, women and children
killed by HIV/AIDS.
o Over 40 countries have been scarred by violent
conflict.
o 25 million is the number of internally displaced
people.
o 12 million is the number of the global refugee
population.
o Unemployment is one of the major threats in
countries all over the world, especially affecting
the youth.
o Terrorism, wars, corruption, money laundering,
organized crime have jeopardize advances in development.
There
is no need to say that Families are on the center
of this scenario.
The
Secretary General of the United Nations in his recent
report “In larger freedom: towards development,
security and human rights for all” stressed
the complexity of these issues as well as the historical
opportunity to move decisively, and to pass on our
children a brighter inheritance than that bequeathed
to any previous generation. He also declares: “…it
is time to decide and we must be ambitious. Our
actions must be urgent as the need and on the same
scale. We must face immediately threats immediately.
We must take advantage of an unprecedented consensus
on how to promote global economic and social development,
and we must forge a new consensus on how to confront
new threats. Only by acting decisively now can we
both confront the pressing security challenges and
win a decisive victory in the global battle against
poverty by 2015.”
As the Families of the 21st Century, no matter where
we are and how different we may be, we have at least
one thing in common: we all embody our hope for
the future. It is our hope that the Sanya Declaration
will become an efficient instrument to place family’s
issues in definitive in the International Agenda,
that through partnership we can act in the formulation
and implementation of “family focused”
public social policies to better face poverty and
that we can become an important force to join the
ambition of the Secretary General of United Nations
in exercising and helping to achieve the Millennium
Development Goals.
Let’s hope that our effort will help to alleviate
the above mentioned scenario for 2006… till
2015!
To
us all, Happy International Day of Families!
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