Message of the World Family Organization President on the occasion of the International Day of the Family May 15, 2006.

Facing the challenges of a new age.

“Through our scientific genius we have made of the world a neighborhood; now through our moral and spiritual genius we must make it a brotherhood.’’

Martin Luther King Jr. in his speech “Facing the challenges of a new age” delivered in Montgomery, Alabama on Dec 3, 1956.

May 15, 2006! International Day of the Family! Once more we gather all around the world, in different ways, to celebrate this so significant event.

This year, I reflected for a long time on the essence of our message. And researching the actual contains on the international development agenda I found a text where the Martin Luther King’s citation above quoted gave me the inspiration needed.

The phrase quoted was delivered in 1956. Fifty years ago! But it is as actual as ever!

The World Summit for Social Development held in Copenhagen in 1995 was a very important mark to set a roadmap and global commitments to overcome the world’s inequality and the imbalance between the wealthy and poor. In 2000, the Millennium Summit, Millennium Declaration and the agreed Millennium Development Goal endorsed the outlined commitments.

The 2005 review through countries reports clearly showed that our hopes are fading! Still eighty percent of the world’s gross domestic product belongs to the 1 billion people living in the developed world and the remaining twenty percent is shared by the 5 billion people living in developing countries.

Globalization is still one of the most divisive issues of our times. And it is affecting families in different ways. Discussion ranges from the positive force that spreads wealth to the numerous problems impacting ordinary people throughout the world.

Globalization needs a strong social dimension to uphold basic human values and improve family’s well-being. It has to be seen through the eyes of women and men in terms of the opportunity it provides for decent work and for meeting the essential needs for food, water, health, education, shelter and for a livable environment.
Moving out of poverty is a crucial challenge. To address the fundamental dimension of poverty as the lack of economic power and the socio-political power and to break the intergenerational transmission of poverty cycle is a vital component of an integrated and equitable poverty reduction strategy.

In the language if the Third Millennium – globalization – has made of the world an even smaller neighborhood, but still we did not discover effective ways to reduce poverty and inequality among nations in order to transform the world in a great brotherhood.

So, let’s change our attitude. Let’s work harder to spread the concept that:

• To make globalization fair for all and to reduce poverty, the promotion and implementation of family-focused social policies starting at the local level is imperative. We need to create a new cycle of opportunities targeting the consolidation of public policies, human rights, partnership with social institutions and market solutions.
  
• Local design poverty reduction strategies constitute a vehicle through which we can influence in planning and budgeting, with a direct positive impact on the families’ well-being.
  
• Good governments are based on a democratic political system, respect for human rights and gender equality, social equality and the rule of law.
  
• Making decent work a key goal of economic policy is a powerful poverty reduction strategy impacting on the most direct way in providing for families’ basic needs.
  
• The voluntary initiatives of companies should be strengthened so they can contribute more to the social dimension of globalization and poverty reduction.

The challenges and the opportunities are enormous. And our work represents just a drop of water in the ocean. But we can start. Our scientific, moral and spiritual genius combined with our commitments of solidarity for a more tolerant, just and peaceful world will help to strength the aspirations of the Martin Luther King’s dreams.

Dr. Deisi Noeli Weber Kusztra, President
World Family Organization

15 May 2006.