In London today, governments, faith groups, charities and business will come together and examine how the world can meet its 2015 millennium development goals; 2005 will be a crucial year that will determine whether the world keeps its promises or breaks them.
Five years ago, every world leader, every major international body and almost every single country signed up to eight millennium development goals - at the heart of which is a definitive commitment to ensuring education for every child, the elimination of avoidable infant and maternal deaths and the halving of poverty. But by next year, the first goal, for girls' education, will go unmet - and world leaders face a stark choice.
Either resources are made available now to tackle poverty, or targets set in a fanfare of publicity will once again be missed and the world's poor left further behind. Seventy countries will have failed to achieve universal primary education by our target date. Yet the promise we made on education for sub-Saharan Africa was to be met by 2015 - not, as now predicted, 2129.
Instead of cutting child mortality by two-thirds by 2015, 30,000 children continue to die unnecessarily each day from avoidable diseases. Yet the promise we made on child health for sub-Saharan Africa was to be achieved in 2015, not - as it now looks - 2165.
Without greatly increased growth, sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, North Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean and the transition economies of Europe and central Asia will all fail to see their poverty halved. Yet the promise made to sub-Saharan Africa was for 2015, not - as now seems likely - 2147.
When we know the scale of the task, and the promises we made, we cannot wait for some other time and some other people. The world must act together now. But there is another reason why 2005 is vital date: it is the 20th anniversary of Live Aid, an event that marked for many the moment when the world woke up to the enormous challenge of tackling poverty.
Yet 20 years on, the great divide between rich and poor countries has grown, is growing and will continue to grow - and in Ethiopia, where Live Aid began, there are today only 7,000 doctors for 67 million people, and spending on health is no more than two dollars a year per person.
Twenty years on, with needs even more pressing, we must yet again awaken the conscience of the world. For the sake of Africa and the world's poor, Britain's G8 presidency of 2005 must become, in the UK's view, a development presidency.
To have a chance of meeting the millennium goals, a new deal between developing and developed countries must be forged. It is in the interests of developing countries to tackle corruption and undertake a sequenced opening up to the investment, trade and growth that will provide jobs. And working with the World Bank and the IMF, developed countries must improve the quantity and quality of development aid. Our offer should be that countries willing to reform will have the resources they need to tackle illiteracy, poverty and disease.
So what does the detail of such an agenda for development look like? First, the world trade talks - which can reduce agricultural protectionism and thus poverty in developing countries - must be pushed forward. Developing countries would gain nearly $350bn by 2015 as a result - enough to lift 140 million people out of poverty.
Second, so that all highly indebted poor countries shed the burden of unsustainable debt, the next stage of debt relief must be properly financed.
Third, there is no single more effective anti-poverty strategy than education, and we must push much harder to deliver the agreed "education for all" goals, including 80 million new school places in Africa.
Fourth, substantial extra resources must now be available to eliminate preventable diseases - TB, malaria and HIV/Aids.
And because these noble challenges need to be financed together, bold initiatives must be explored - including the UK government's proposal for a new international finance facility, through which donors from the richer countries would raise funds on the international capital markets to double aid from around $50bn a year to $100bn.
We must act, not only because it is morally right, but because it is now essential for stability and security. Many of us grew up thinking there were two worlds - the haves and the have-nots - and that they were quite separate. That was wrong then. It is even more wrong now. We are linked now in so many ways: by economics and trade, migration, environment, disease, drugs, conflict and - yes - terrorism.
It is only by addressing these global issues now - and tackling poverty - that we can shape the better world we want our children to inhabit. Meeting and mastering these challenges can unite all people of goodwill. Let the days and the months leading to 2005 become a time of action.
· Gordon Brown is the chancellor of the exchequer; Jim Wolfensohn is the president of the World Bank
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