At the U.N. Millennium Summit held in September, world leaders pledged both to "free our peoples from the scourge of war, whether within or between states" and to halve global poverty by 2015.
That these should be global imperatives is apparent from two statistics: Wars claimed more than 5 million lives in the 1990s and that nearly 3 billion people, almost half the world's population, live on a daily income of less than two dollars a day. In an era of unprecedented progress, this extent of conflict and poverty is an affront to humankind.
Poverty and conflict often reinforce each other and create a vicious cycle. Poverty is a potent catalyst for conflict and violence within and among states, particularly at a time when poor countries and peoples are increasingly aware of the relative affluence of others.