UN Secretary-General calls for focus on "bottom billion"

On January 8, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon emphasized that 2008 should be the year of the “bottom billion,” citing the need for renewed determination to address the needs of the world's poor who have been left behind by global economic growth.

“We must address ourselves to the needs of the weak, the disadvantaged, those who have been excluded from the mainstream international community,” he said during his first press conference of 2008. “And so I say, let 2008 be the year of the ‘bottom billion.’” The “bottom billion” refers to the phrase used by some economists to describe the poorest of the world’s poor—the nearly one billion left behind by global economic growth.

Noting that most of the world’s poorest people live in Africa or small developing islands of Asia with incomes of less than $1 a day, he pledged to work over the coming year to strengthen the UN's role in development. For further information, visit the United Nations Information Centre website.