 Zidane and Ronaldo
The shots that the two stars, both UN Development Programme (UNDP) Goodwill Ambassadors, take this time aim not so much at landing the ball in the net as on scoring a different kind of goal, the eight UN Millennium Goals (MDGs) that seek to slash a host of social ills, ranging from extreme poverty and hunger to maternal and infant mortality to lack of access to education and health care, all by 2015.
"No one is a spectator in the struggle to end poverty," Ronaldo, who now plays for Corinthians in Brazil, said of the 25 January match, the 7th in an annual series, half the proceeds of which will benefit UNDP anti-poverty programmes. "It is only through working together, on the same team, that we will achieve the Millennium Development Goals."
Zidane, who retired from active football in 2006 but continues to play in the annual Match Against Poverty, echoed Ronaldo. "We must score the eight goals through commitment, willpower and teamwork," he said.
UNDP Administrator Helen Clark said this year"s match takes on special importance as it comes five years before the MDG deadline. "The MDGs are enormously important targets, the achievement of which would mean a huge improvement to peoples" lives," she said.
"Achieving them will require strong partnerships, enough dedicated resources, unwavering political leadership, and a long-term strategy to ensure that how we develop and grow is sustainable in every sense."
SL Benfica chairman expressed his club"s pleasure at being associated with UNDP. "Football is a great way to get people together for a good cause," he said.
The other half the proceeds will go to the SL Benfica Foundation, targeted at social development projects in Portuguese-speaking African countries.
Proceeds from the previous six matches have benefited anti-poverty initiatives ranging from support to female entrepreneurs to the construction of sports centres for street children and the disadvantaged throughout Asia, Africa and Latin America.
The game is the latest in a long list of cooperation between the UN and international sports that has seen the UN Children"s Fund (UNICEF) team up with the European Swimming League in "a race against time" to prevent deaths from unclean water; the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) partner the WTA Tour of women"s tennis to promote gender equality; and the UN World Food Programme (WFP) launch "Cricket Against Hunger" with England and Wales to draw attention to the plight of 400 million chronically hungry children around the world.
Source: UN News
Global 
-
-
-
U.S. President Barack Obama's top Russia adviser has said that diplomats from Washington and Moscow will likely meet in the coming weeks to work on a new UN Security Council draft resolution targeting the Syrian government over its bloody crackdown on antigovernment protesters. more
-
More than 500 protesters have gathered in Moscow's Pushkin Square to demand more government funding for science and scientists in Russia. more
-
Anders Hjemdahl of the Stockholm-based Institute for Information on the Crimes of Communism talked to RFE/RL about why Western Europeans seem to know so little about the communist past. more
-
The Paris prosecutor's office has dropped an investigation into a French writer's claim that former International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn tried to rape her. more
-
A prominent member of a Russian anarchist street-art collective who faced jail for overturning a police car has had the charges against him lifted. more
-
The Slovak parliament has approved expanding the powers of the European Union's bailout fund. more
-
A Prague court has ruled that former Belarusian presidential candidate Ales Mikhalevich should not be extradited to Belarus. more
Comments
|
Popular Right Now
Popular Commentary
New Reports
New World News
 Singer Whitney Houston, dead at 48Sundered by drug abuse and a slumping career, the talented and once beautiful Whitney Houston has passed away. - Pakistan: Short stories in Punjabi, to promote Christian values and common good
Fr. Mukhtar Alam has published a volume of stories of his mother. Stories that give "light" to those who are in the "dark" and teach the common good. At presentation, near the cathedral of Faisalabad, intellectuals, writers and leaders of the Church of Pakistan Muslim.
- Hong Kong: Hong Kong, jobs emergency: workers shortage by 2018
One government study confirms need for 14 thousand workers by 2018 to maintain economic growth at current levels. Behind this there are restrictive policies on birth control imposed by Beijing and the decision not to give citizenship to those born in the Territory.
- Myanmar: Monk Gambira, leader of the Saffron Revolution, free again
The authorities had yesterday detained him "for questioning". First released only a month ago, Gambira has spent the past three years in prison for leading protests by monks against the Burmese government.
- India: Karnataka: Jesuits and schools targeted by Hindu nationalists
Three attacks since 2011 at St. Joseph's PU College, Anekal. The religious are accused of not having displayed the national flag on Republic Day, but the president has always denied this. Silence of police and authorities. Sajan George, president of the Global Council of Indian Christians (GCIC): ...
|
RSS
Twitter
Facebook
Google+