Reverend Tim Costello, the World Vision Australia CEO, said that the world was winning in its fight against poverty but more needed to be done to eradicate it.
Speaking at the National Press Club in Canberra on Wednesday, Reverend Costello told the audience that a 'giant leap' had been achieved in reducing poverty, which was outlined in a new World Vision report, entitled Island Nation or Global Citizen.
"The number of people surviving on less than $US1 a day has dropped by 135 million since 1990 and some 34 million more children in poor countries have been able to go to primary school since 2000," he said.
"Health programs have saved at least five million children since 2000 while the
number of people accessing AIDS drugs has jumped from 250,000 to two million
people in just four years to the end of 2006 – which alone is saving 5000 lives a day."
Despite the upbeat assessment, two-third of Australians believed global poverty was getting worse or not changing – the reality was the world is slowly winning the war on poverty, quoted the World Vision press release.
Reverend Costello continued, saying that more effort was required in eliminating poverty and its effort was being 'undermined' by the broken promises made by rich countries, including the Australian Federal Government.
He criticised the Federal Government for being one of only six developed countries out of 22 that failed to make a commitment to lift aid to 0.7% of the national income. In addition, he also said the government was 'confusing' Australians by making repeated announcement for the same funding project; and thus leading some to think that the level of aid was much more generous than in reality.
"It is not unusual for a single funding allocation, such as money for HIV and AIDS projects, to be publicly announced three or more times," he said.
Even though the government had failed to live up to its commitment, the report showed Australians wanted them to do more with 62 percent stating that Australia should be a world leader in reducing global poverty.