The President of Malta Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca was invited to address the delegates present at a workshop entitled ‘Poverty, Inequality and Global Conflict’, at the United Nations in New York.
In a recorded message, the President remarked that ‘it is evident that a substantial understanding of appropriate processes by which to understand these matters [poverty, inequality and global conflict] remains under-prioritised’.
During her remarks about poverty, the President said that the amount of people living in poverty keeps increasing, even though the Gross Domestic Product of various economies increases.
“I would have hoped that, as GDP figures increase, the number of people at risk of poverty would decrease. However, this is not happening. Taking Europe as an example, one in four people are at risk of poverty and/or social exclusion, with an expected 20 million people being in the poverty trap in the European Union alone. This is indeed a worrying trend.”
The President then said that ‘all nations in their various capacities must combine their efforts to engage in an ongoing fight against those myopic policies that exacerbate the situation of poverty and hunger’—situations which lead to global conflict and subsequently also lead to migration.
The workshop is being organised by Professor Richard Rubenstein from George Mason University. Prof Rubenstein is an expert on American foreign policy, religious conflicts, and terrorism. The workshop is being attended by some of the world’s foremost experts on poverty and inequality. Professor Rubenstein was in Malta in May 2015, when he addressed an interfaith forum organised by The President’s Foundation for the Wellbeing of Society.