In a House of Lords debate regarding the forthcoming summit to adopt the sustainable development goals, Lord Loomba CBE said that the UN should include widows and their children in the indicators which follow the adoption of the sustainable development goals.
The debate takes place at the UN General Assembly from 25th September to 27th September, 2015 and have 17 goals with 169 targets covering five areas to act as a springboard from the MDGs.
Lord Loomba highlighted that if these goals are to be achieved, the UN must pay attention to a group of over one billion people comprising of 259 million widows, 584 their children and many more the family depends, who suffer in silence. Widows are invisible, forgotten sufferers in the developing countries. They are burden on society whereas if they are given education and empowered they will become contributors to their families, communities and nations.
He is pleased that the main purpose of these goals is ‘do not leave anyone behind’. This can only happen if all nations will take responsibility of reducing the gap between poor and rich; gap between rural areas and urban; gap between educated and uneducated; gap between skilled and unskilled; and improve gender inequality and increase women and girls security.
Lord Loomba is delighted that he has been invited to attend a High Level Plenary Session at the United Nations General Assembly, which will be chaired by His Excellency Ban Ki Moon, UN General Secretary.
