Graca Machel, Tutu, Malala write Jonathan, world leaders on 2015

Nobel Peace prize winner, Archbishop Desmond Tutu; wife of late Nelson Mandela, Graca Machel; Pakistani girl education rights activist, Malala Yousafzai and two other civil rights campaigners, have written a letter to world leaders, including President Goodluck Jonathan, warning of dangers that lie ahead in 2015 as a result of growing insecurity.
South Africa’s Nobel Peace Prize laureate Desmond Tutu (R) and staff from the Desmond and Leah Tutu Legacy hold up a poster wishing Nelson Mandela a happy birthday at the Marconi Beam Public Primary School in Cape Town on 18 July 2013. Nelson Mandela spent his 95th birthday in hospital Thursday but his health was “steadily improving”, the South African presidency said, as people around the world honoured his legacy with charitable acts. With a wave of good deeds planned to mark Nelson Mandela Day, South Africans awoke to word that their national hero was getting better six fraught weeks after he was admitted to hospital with a recurring lung infection. AFP PHOTO
South Africa’s Nobel Peace Prize laureate Desmond Tutu
In the letter by the trio, Mo Ibrahim and Muhammed Yunus Bono, they said the leaders had failed to build on progress and allowed poverty, hunger and pandemics to spread.
They, therefore, drew the attention of the world leaders to a movement that is on the way, which will hold accountable those leaders who fail to help secure a better, safer world and as well celebrate leaders who rise to the occasion.
Their letter read: “Dear world leaders, we write to sound a warning. A warning that 2015 will be a year of huge oppor-tunity, but also of huge risk.
“What is at stake here could not be greater. For it is not less than the future of our human family and the world upon which we all depend.
“Two global processes, the replacement of the current UN development framework and the conclusion of a new climate treaty, culminate within months of each other at the end of 2015.
“They require us to decide which future we want for people and planet. For there are two dramatically different futures we could live in by 2030.
“Down one hopeful path we have built on progress, and learned how to eradicate extreme poverty, hunger, as well as put an end to preventable maternal, newborn and child deaths.
“In so doing, we will give everyone everywhere opportunity and the right to lead their lives with dignity without jeopardising our planet’s ability to provide for its people now and into the future.
“This is an entirely possible outcome if we do the right thing. Down another path we have failed to build on progress, but have allowed the injustice of poverty, hunger and pandemics to spread.
“A growing insecurity caused by unequal access to increasingly scarce natural resources leads to tragic conflicts from which nobody, no elite, no matter how rich can hide.
“This is an entirely plausible outcome of a complacent business-as-usual approach to 2015.
“Which world do you want to live in by 2030? Which world it will be depends upon the decision you make in 2015, and the preparations we make for it now.
“The good news is a global movement is coming together for 2015 and the future, inspired by the words of Nelson Mandela—Like slavery, like apartheid, poverty is not natural. It is man made and it can be overcome by the actions of human beings.
“Climate can change too and must be remedied by the actions of human beings.
“This movement for people and planet will lead to accolades for those leaders who rise to this historic occasion.
“It will hold accountable those who fail to help secure a better safer world for all. It will speak up for the marginalised and disenfranchised, and demand justice for all.
“Let’s leave no one behind as we look with confidence towards a future which we can make great, for you have been given an opportunity that will be the envy of history.”

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