UN General Assembly
2000

war and in peace. Meanwhile, the private sector wields 17 a great deal of power in its decisions as to where it will buy, sell and invest. Those decisions may bear directly on the quality of life in many developing countries. Even though the odds are staggering, the United Nations system can make a difference in reducing poverty, gender inequality and child and maternal mortality. But it can make a difference only from a position of strength and from a platform shared by other actors at the international level: from a position of shared responsibility. The Millennium Summit has declared poverty eradication the United Nations number one priority. We applaud that. But fighting poverty is not only a moral imperative, as it always has been; it has also become an economic one. That is another reason for the United Nations to become more inclusive of the private sector. The Secretary-General's report (A/54/2000), “We the peoples”, duly poses the question of how to take the United Nations forward. Whatever the way