Hon Chairperson and hon members, today in South Africa a child will be born. Her mother will hold her, feed her, comfort her and care for her as any mother would anywhere in the world. In these most basic acts of human nature, humanity knows no divisions. But to be born a child in today's Africa is to begin a life centuries away from prosperity. It is to live under conditions that many of us in this House would consider inhuman.
No one today is unaware of this divide between the rich and the poor of the world. No one today can claim ignorance of the cost that this divide imposes on the poor and dispossessed, who are no less deserving of human dignity, fundamental freedom, security, food and education than any of us.
The cost, however, is not borne by them alone. The cost is borne by all of us, rich and poor, men and women of all races and religions. Today's real borders are not between nations, but between the powerful and the powerless, the free and the fettered, the privileged and the humiliated.
Scientists tell us that the world of nature is so small and interdependent that a butterfly flapping its wings in the Amazon rainforest can generate a violent storm on the other side of the earth. The principle is known as the butterfly effect. Today we realise perhaps more than ever that the world of human activity has its own butterfly effect for better or worse, hence the need to work together.
The IFP, as the champion of the poor, supports this debate. You would recall that I began my address with reference to the girl. Even though her mom will do all in her power to protect and sustain her, there is a one-in- four risk that she will never go to school, and that she will have to head her own household and take care of her siblings.
A few years ago at the United Nations Millennium Summit, world leaders recognised that global progress had been achieved in the struggle for human development, but they also identified impediments. These included HIV/Aids, and the conflict and poverty that still stand between humanity and the realisation of its freedom from want and fear.
Among those priorities, none was more important than the pledge they made to spare no effort to free our fellow men, women and children from abject and dehumanising conditions of extreme poverty. More especially, they resolved that by 2015 they would halve the proportion of the world's people living in extreme poverty and hunger, achieve universal access to primary schooling and gender equality at all levels of education, reduce child mortality by two thirds and maternal mortality by three quarters, halt the spread of HIV/Aids, and reduce the incidence of other major diseases.
Currently, sub-Saharan Africa is home to just a quarter of the world's very poor, but the ratio is rising steadily, aggravated by the scourge of HIV/Aids. Another challenge to meeting the target is how to measure poverty, which has dimensions other than simply average income. Growth is not a gain if it destroys the environment, fails to engage women, or drums families from secure but poor rural lives to a frightening, crime-ridden, marginal and city-slum existence.
To briefly take another look: there is also reversing Aids, malaria and tuberculosis, which together have accounted for 150 million deaths since 1945. Child poverty is the principal determinant of life chances. Children born into poverty are more likely to die prematurely. They are less likely to attend school or get any qualifications. The time to act is now, and we need to make sure that the Millennium Development Goals are attainable. But poverty is an old enemy with many faces. Defeating it will require the many actors to work together. It was the great Mahatma Gandhi who once said that poverty was the worst form of violence. Let us recognise that extreme poverty anywhere is a threat to human security everywhere. Let us recall that poverty is a denial of human rights, and let us summon the will to deal with it.
Let me end with the words of Mother Teresa, who said the following:
We think sometimes that poverty is only being hungry, naked and homeless. The poverty of being unwanted, unloved and uncared for is the greatest poverty. We must start in our own homes to remedy this kind of poverty.
I believe the title of the debate is so apt in that we need to work together, and the time to start is now. Thank you. [Applause.]