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COMBE Statement

 

Hunger and extreme poverty are among the worst scourges of humankind. One of the UN Millennium Development goals has been to halve the number of hungry people in the developing countries by 2015. As it looks, the world is far from reaching that target. “The target date is drawing near, but the targets themselves are not".1

The idea that millions of people will have died from want by 2015 whereas there will be extreme wealth for others is unacceptable.

There are people and organizations working in the field of charity making noble attempts to alleviate hunger and extreme poverty. Yet, in order to eventually eradicate hunger and extreme poverty, fundamental structural changes are needed.

Innumerable ideas as well as elaborate tools and methods to bring about such structural changes do exist. Furthermore, there is an awakening civil society. The combined efforts of organizations and individuals of this critical civil society can and should open ways towards the eradication of hunger and extreme poverty in the shortest amount of time possible. 

This is what must be done:    

  1. NGOs and other representatives of global civil society unite in a supranational coalition whose paramount goal it is to eradicate hunger and extreme poverty by meeting basic needs for everyone: the “Coalition to Meet Basic Needs for Everyone” (COMBE).
  2. The participants of the coalition combine some of their agendas, time and resources for this common purpose, while continuing their respective political, social, economic or environmental activities.
  3. The coalition (COMBE) develop a universally comprehensive ethic that recognizes the fact that we are one human family and that until everyone’s basic needs are met, extreme economic disparities, oppression and war will continue to plague global society. 
  4. The coalition draw the attention of the world public to the deplorable situation of the dispossessed everywhere.
  5. The coalition plans strategies for common actions which should be simultaneously carried out in many countries, on different continents.

A global civil society that realizes its capability of being a motor for change will have strong impacts on world politics and could eventually generate a new type of political leadership that would appropriately restructure the United Nations (UN) to include an empowered global civil society. This conviction sets the basis and the justification for the project introduced in this paper.
[1] FAO: The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2005, Eradicating world hunger
     – key to achieving the Millennium Development Goals, p.6

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