Tanzania: Science, Technology Innovations to Eradicate Disease, Poverty Worldwide

New York — PRESIDENT Jakaya Kikwete has challenged national leaders world over to take advantage of prevailing social, economic and scientific innovations to build a world free of poverty, hunger, disease and deprivation.
Addressing the UN General Assembly here on Friday evening, President Kikwete said a desirable world to be built should also be the one that protects its environment and nature.
He told the gathering that it was possible to have a world without wars, conflicts and acts of terrorism...a world where human rights were respected, rule of law observed, democracy reigned and the civil society was regarded as an integral part of the development endeavour.
"Despite many challenges, the world was passing through time of great opportunity. With stronger multilateralism and the United Nations leading the way and with strong political will on the part of national leaders and the people, everything is possible.
We can make our world a better place for everyone to live," he said. He paid glowing tribute to the UN Secretary General, Mr Ban ki-Moon for the excellent work he is doing for the UN and humanity at large.
He also commended the choice of this year's General assembly's theme - Post 2015 Development Agenda: Setting the stage, which he said was timely and very opportune.
"It affords us the opportunity here with regard to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and decide what needs to be done to complete the unfinished business and enable us to make informed decision beyond 2015," he said.
Mr Kikwete said it was heartwarming to note that progress towards attaining MDGs was recorded in the last 13 years. However, he noted that the progress was highly uneven among nations and continents and varied from one goal to another.
He gave an example of extreme poverty that has been halved at global level, where 1.2 billion people were still trapped there with about 19,000 children under the age of five and around 800 women die every day mostly from preventable and curable diseases and other causes.
The president said it was totally unacceptable in today's world of plenty, where there was unprecedented advancement in science and technology which could be leveraged to solve all development challenges facing humanity.