Powerful countries set to betray hopes of millions at UN World Summit

The world’s largest ever anti-poverty campaign is gravely concerned that countries including the United States are undermining the Summit outcome, and ensuring its failure. The Global Call to Action against Poverty (GCAP) warns that by cutting agreed wording designed to end poverty, governments are trying to edit away the future of the world’s poorest people. The current draft of the Summit outcome declaration contains strong statements on fighting poverty. However, the United States has proposed deleting key wording on tackling global poverty and disease. The proposed US changes include cutting all references to the Millennium Development Goals - the internationally agreed targets for halving world poverty. The US also wants to cut all references to small arms controls and weaken wording on all governments’ responsibility to protect civilians in cases of mass killing such as the Rwandan genocide.