Queen Rania Takes Part in the Launch of Action/2015 Campaign

January 15, 2015

As a member of the UN chief’s high-level advisory panel (HLP) on the Post-2015 Development Agenda, Her Majesty Queen Rania Al Abdullah, along with a number of high profile activists, addressed a letter to world leaders urging them to create a positive change in the world in order to secure a better and safer future for all humans.

The campaign, backed by a coalition of over a thousand organizations in more than 125 countries, will call upon world leader to build on the growing momentum and take key decisions to eradicate poverty, tackle inequality, and prevent dangerous climate change. To this purpose, the United Nations will hold two crucial summits this year; the “UN Special Summit on Sustainable Development” as well as the “UN Climate talks”.

The list of cosignatories, made up of numerous high-profile activists, includes the Founder of The Mary Robinson Foundation - Climate Justice, Mary Robinson; Nobel Peace Prize recipient, Archbishop Desmond Tutu; founders of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Bill Gates and Melinda Gates; director of The Earth Institute, Jeffery Sachs; female education activist and Nobel Prize laureate, Malala Yousafzai; and Chairman of United Nations Foundation, Ted Turner.

A new calculation released by the action/2015 coalition shows that, even using relatively conservative scenarios, the number of people living in extreme poverty – on less than $1.25 a day – could be reduced dramatically from over a billion to 360 million by 2030.

The same calculation revealed that about 4 % of the global population would live in extreme poverty, (compared to 17% today) if critical policy choices on poverty investment, inequality, and climate change are made this year and implemented thereafter.

In 2013, Her Majesty Queen Rania had also joined leaders from civil society, research institutes and academia from Arab countries in a two-day regional workshop in Amman to discuss the Post-2015 Development Priorities for the Arab world.