“Urging greater support for people struggling to escape poverty and build better lives, [U.N.] Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the United Nations marked the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty by calling on the world to ‘do more to listen to the voices that often go unheard,'” the U.N. News Centre reports. “Ban noted that the day comes as the international community is pursuing twin objectives: intensifying efforts to reach the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), and formulating the next set of goals to guide our efforts after the MDG 2015 deadline,” the news service writes. “Stressing that too many, especially women and girls, continue to be denied access to adequate health care and sanitation, quality education and decent housing, he also said that rising inequality in many countries — both rich and poor — is fueling exclusion from economic, social and political spheres, and the impacts of climate change and loss of biodiversity hit the poorest the hardest,” according to the news service, which quotes several other U.N. leaders (10/17).