Multinational companies need to increase their efforts to address development issues worldwide, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said on Tuesday ahead of a conference on global businesses and the United Nations Millennium Development Goals, AFP/Google.com reports.
The MDGs include targets to curb the spread of diseases such as HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. "This year must be a year of action if we are to tackle the development emergency we face," Brown said in a statement released ahead of the London conference, which will include the heads of more than 80 global businesses and leaders from countries such as Ghana and Rwanda.
The conference will highlight work being done by more than 12 companies, such as Citi, Coca-Cola, Diageo, Microsoft, Sumitomo Chemical, Thomson Reuters and Vodafone. Brown said that he hopes such work will inspire other businesses to help reach the MDG targets by the 2015 deadline. Kemal Dervis from the U.N. Development Programme said in a statement that the private sector is "one of the greatest untapped resources" to help meet MDG targets (AFP/Google.com, 5/5).