U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Friday “rallied the United Nations community in a Call to Action, capping off a week of activities to spur accelerated progress in the 1,000 days to the end of 2015 — the target date for achieving the eight anti-poverty Millennium Development Goals (MDGs),” the U.N. News Centre reports (4/12). “‘Over the next 1,000 days, let us give 1,000 percent,’ the secretary general told delegates and U.N. staff gathered at the U.N. headquarters in New York,” Xinhua writes, adding, “Ban was joined at the Friday event by his special adviser for the MDGs, Jeffrey Sachs; Gary Quinlan, the permanent representative of Australia to the United Nations; and Eugene-Richard Gasana, the Rwandan U.N. ambassador” (4/13). “Since last Friday, the U.N. has been working with partners around the world to build momentum to achieve greater gains by the 2015 target date,” the U.N. News Centre notes (4/12).