"The 2005 World Summit is a once-in-a-generation opportunity for the world to come together and take action on grave global threats that reuqiare bold global solutions. It is also a chance to revitalize the United Nations itsef. It is, in short, an opportunity for all humankind"
---Secretary-General Kofi Annan
EarthTrends is proud to announce the release of World Resources 2005: The Wealth of the Poor: Managing Ecosystems to Fight Poverty. This edition of World Resources, WRI's flagship publication, takes an in-depth look at how ecosystem management and sound governance matter greatly to the livelihoods of the poor. The report posits that while traditional models of poverty reduction often include the environment as an afterthought, the goods and services provided by ecosystems are, in fact, key to alleviating rural poverty.
This report comes at a critical time. Leaders from across the globe are meeting this week at the Millennium Summit in New York to assess the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) five years after their initial declaration. The summit will focus on a wide range of issues extending beyond poverty and human development to global governance, UN reform, terrorism, and security. However, there is wide consensus among many attending nations that meeting the MDGs, especially in Africa, is the foremost challenge to multilateral organizations like the United Nations. Evaluating this global plan to reduce poverty and improve human health and well-being will be a major focus of this summit.
EarthTrends and World Resources are superb sources of information for the very issues that the Summit seeks to address. While the main focus of World Resources is on the importance of natural resource based, pro-poor growth under good governance regimes, two sections of the report may be of particular interest to EarthTrends users:
* A special section on the MDGs and national-level poverty reduction processes
* Twelve new overview data tables, with three addressing poverty and human-development
Those who visit EarthTrends will find a total of twenty five new data tables; hundreds of updated variables; and an updated Poverty Resource, containing sub-national maps and data. If you can't find the information that you're looking for, please contact us and let us know what you would like to see.
