The challenges

Some facts about today’s world:

• By 2025, 2 out of 3 people will not have enough water for their basic needs.
• A billion people do not have access to clean drinking water
• Polluted water affects the health of 1.2 billion people.
• Desertification affects over a billion people.
• Soil degradation affects a third of the world’s land.
• 375 km2 of forest disappear every day.
• Two billion people do not have access to electricity.
• 3.1 million people died from HIV/AIDS in 2002, 42 million are infected.
• 25% of the world population live in wealthy countries and consume 75% of energy.
• Over past years, numerous conflicts led to 10 millions of deaths.

On September 2000, the 189 UN member countries adopted the UN Millennium Declaration:

“We will spare no efforts to free our fellow men, women and children from the abject and deshumanizing conditions of extreme poverty, to which more than a billion of them are currently subjected... We believe that the central challenge we face today is to ensure that globalization becomes a positive force for all the world's people... For while globalization offers great opportunities, at present its benefits are very unevenly shared...”

The Millennium Declaration refers to universal values such as freedom, tolerance, equality, solidarity, respect of nature, shared responsibility.

The Millennium Declaration identifies three main challenges for the future of the world:

• Peace, security and disarmament
• Development and poverty eradication
• Protecting our common environment