High-Level Panel on Post-2015 Development Agenda wraps up second meeting

The U.N. Secretary-General's High-Level Panel on the Post-2015 Development Agenda wrapped up its second meeting on Friday in Monrovia, Liberia, with British Prime Minister David Cameron, a co-chair of the panel, "say[ing] it is possible to eradicate extreme poverty worldwide within our generation," Liberia's The Inquirer reports. Cameron co-chairs the panel with Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and Indonesia President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, the newspaper notes (Wolokolie, 2/4).

"Cameron, who is also pushing a development agenda as chair of the G8, ... insisted the G8 and the new development goals could create an energy around issues of world poverty similar to that generated in 2005 during the U.K. chairmanship," the Guardian reports, adding Cameron "stressed that a more responsible capitalism was required, including greater tax transparency" (Wintour, 2/1). Focusing on improving economic development, Sirleaf said, "$260 billion in economic losses annually is directly linked to inadequate water supply and sanitation around the world. We must take this issue more seriously," according to AfricaNews (2/1). The panel's "third meeting is expected to take place next month in Indonesia," and the co-chairs are expected to deliver the new development agenda to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in May, The Inquirer notes (2/4).