Vatican City, Feb 23, 2005 / 22:00 pm
On Tuesday, Archbishop Celestino Migliore, permanent observer of the Holy See to the United Nations, addressed the 59th General Assembly on behalf of the Catholic Church.
He spoke to informal consultations regarding the Vatican’s stance on a Report of the High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change and the Practical Plan to Achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)
The archbishop underlined the Holy See's interest in Recommendation No. 7, namely, that official development assistance, or ODA, should be based on actual needs, rather than assigned targets.
Migliore said that, "many experts concur that extreme poverty and hunger derive in great part from the inequality in the distribution of income on the one hand and in conspicuous over-consumption on the other."