World attendance record set for anti-poverty campaign

UNITED NATIONS – Nearly 39 million people around the world took part in this week’s 24-hour ‘Stand Up and Speak Out’ anti-poverty campaign, setting a new Guinness world record, the United Nations announced Thursday.

“I am very happy to announce that around 39 million people took part in the Stand Up against poverty campaign,” said Kiyotaka Akasaka, the UN Under Secretary General for Public Information. “It broke the world Guinness record of last year (23,5 million).”The global event, staged Tuesday and Wednesday to coincide with the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, featured 6 000 events that drew more than 38,8 million people, Akasaka said.”It was extraordinary.”People in 110 countries stood up in public spaces, schools, places of work or worship, at sports and cultural events to voice their frustration at the lack of real progress in rooting out global poverty.The event was sponsored by the Global Call to Action Against Poverty (GCAP) alliance and the UN Millennium Campaign, which lobbies for implementation of the anti-poverty Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by the 2015 deadline.The biggest attendance was in Asia, where 27,6 million people took part, followed by Africa with 7,5 million and the Arab world with 2,5 million.At UN headquarters, UN chief Ban Ki-moon on Thursday led 900 staff, diplomats, visitors and representatives of non-governmental organisations in a ceremony at which participants stood up and read out an anti-poverty pledge.One of the key MDGs aims by 2015 to reduce by half the proportion of people living on less than a dollar a day and also by half the proportion of people suffering from hunger.”In 2000, world leaders made a commitment to do everything in their power to end poverty, by agreeing to achieve the MDGs by 2015,” said Salil Shetty, head of the UN Millennium Campaign.”This year marks the halfway point to this deadline and still almost a billion people living on less than a dollar a day.”Nampa-AFP”It broke the world Guinness record of last year (23,5 million).”The global event, staged Tuesday and Wednesday to coincide with the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, featured 6 000 events that drew more than 38,8 million people, Akasaka said.”It was extraordinary.”People in 110 countries stood up in public spaces, schools, places of work or worship, at sports and cultural events to voice their frustration at the lack of real progress in rooting out global poverty.The event was sponsored by the Global Call to Action Against Poverty (GCAP) alliance and the UN Millennium Campaign, which lobbies for implementation of the anti-poverty Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by the 2015 deadline.The biggest attendance was in Asia, where 27,6 million people took part, followed by Africa with 7,5 million and the Arab world with 2,5 million.At UN headquarters, UN chief Ban Ki-moon on Thursday led 900 staff, diplomats, visitors and representatives of non-governmental organisations in a ceremony at which participants stood up and read out an anti-poverty pledge.One of the key MDGs aims by 2015 to reduce by half the proportion of people living on less than a dollar a day and also by half the proportion of people suffering from hunger.”In 2000, world leaders made a commitment to do everything in their power to end poverty, by agreeing to achieve the MDGs by 2015,” said Salil Shetty, head of the UN Millennium Campaign.”This year marks the halfway point to this deadline and still almost a billion people living on less than a dollar a day.”Nampa-AFP