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Pax Christi International Youth Statement
May 2010 – Triennial World Assembly Youth Seminar

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were developed following the adoption of the Millennium Declaration in 2000, which pledged UN member state support—financial and structural—for the developing world, in an effort to eradicate hunger and extreme poverty, achieve universal primary education, promote gender equality, reduce child mortality, improve maternal health, combat malaria and HIV/AIDS, ensure environmental sustainability, and develop a global partnership for international development.

As we reflect on the benchmarks committed to by our governments ten years ago, we as young people (aged 18-30) urge our elected officials, appointed leaders, and national, regional and international policymakers to recommit themselves and to reprioritize these development targets. With only five years remaining until the goals are set to expire, we gather this week in Strasbourg, France—a capital of European policymaking—as diverse people of faith and commitment, as leaders in our communities and as those affected by a future of world inequity, to ask ourselves:

What world will we inherit?

Representing the international peace and human rights movement Pax Christi International, we believe firmly in a world where sustainable human security for all is a concrete reality. We believe that the only way to achieve peace and full human flourishing in our globally interconnected community is through the promotion of human rights and human achievement, regardless of race, class, gender, sexual orientation, or any other factor of social, cultural, or national differentiation. We believe that if we have been entrusted with the future of our planet and her limited resources, we must morally obligate ourselves to champion social and environmental justice.

As such, we believe that the Millennium Development Goals are not merely aspirational benchmarks but standards of human achievement which should be championed in the face of many crises currently affecting our world—financial, environmental, and human-security related.

We believe that the Millennium Development Goals are a path toward promoting sustainable human security and peace, and should be adequately funded according to 0.7% of the Gross National Income (GNI) – committed to by the most developed countries in 1970 and reiterated in 2002 at the Monterrey Consensus (the outcome of the first International Conference on Financing for Development in 2002).

We call into question the increase in military spending since the outbreak of the global war on terror. We urge our national governments to heed our call for a renewed focus on sustainable development and sustained human security in the face of growing threats to vulnerable populations around the world. We believe that the united voice of morally committed, passionately engaged, politically empowered young people has the power to change our world.