According to the Prime Minister of Spain José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, it’s entirely possible to get rid of both world hunger and poverty.
This was part of the message Zapatero offered on Tuesday at a Columbia World Leaders Forum event, where he spoke on the economy, environment, and the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals.
“It’s materially conceivable that we eradicate extreme poverty,” Zapatero said.
Confronting problems of poverty, world hunger, sickness, education, and the environment, he reiterated the message that these issues must be addressed globally.
Spain is forging ahead in developing renewable energy sources, he stated, describing them as the strongest in the world. Fighting climate change and creating new stable sources of employment with the creation of innovative energy technologies, is essential, he said.
He explained that he planned to put into place a tax on financial transactions in Spain in order to raise funds to help in the fight against global hunger and poverty.
“It’s our responsibility for what is happening to us and our responses are global,” he said. “We must have an international revenue system.”
Zapatero also stated that he wished to see voluntary national contributions from the global community in order to achieve the Millennium Development Goals—international goals that include eradicating poverty, fighting disease, and environmental sustainability.
At the end of his speech, Zapatero took questions from audience members, some of whom strayed from the topic of global sustainability—diving into topics such as drug trafficking and Latin American relations.
Zapatero said he believed drug trafficking to be as terrible a blight as world poverty and explained that the European Union has various programs to combat trafficking and organizations that work to stop illegal crops.
Latin America, he said, managed to largely resist the economic crisis despite difficulties in certain countries. He added that Spain in particular has special links to Latin America and has worked for the improvement of democracies in the region.
The United States, he urged, should as well establish a more intense dialogue with Latin American nations.
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