The international community must offer short-term emergency measures to meet critical needs. But it must also make longer-term investments to promote food production and agricultural development, enhance food security and maintain and accelerate momentum towards the MDGs.

Millions of our fellow human beings continue to live as contemporary slaves, victims of abominable practices like human trafficking, forced labour and sexual exploitation. Countless children are forced to become soldiers, work in sweat shops or are sold by desperate families. Women are brutalized and traded like commodities. Entire households and villages labour under debt bondage.

Between now and 2015, we must make sure that promises made become promises kept. The consequences of doing otherwise are profound: death, illness and despair, needless suffering, lost opportunities for millions upon millions of people.

Women must be full partners in development, so they can lift themselves and their communities out of poverty.

We must follow the wisdom of the Brundtland Report. We must pursue development that meets the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs.

People everywhere look to the United States to use its remarkable power to help lift humanity up and to work for the common good.

Let us take advantage of the opportunities presented by climate action and lay the foundations for a more prosperous and secure future for all