The international community has pledged about US$16 billion at Thursday's UN summit to help combat poverty, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced on Thursday.

"We have full commitment from many countries in pledges to help the world's poor, around the 16 billion dollars mark," Ban told a press conference at the conclusion of the one-day UN High-level Event on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

In the fight against Malaria, a disease that kills a child every 30 seconds, donors have pledged US$3 billion to "save the lives of more than 4 million people by 2015," Ban said.

"This is global leadership, global partnership in action," Ban said. "It is a model for how to achieve all the other millennium development goals."

"I think we all can agree that this year's high-level event on the MDGs has exceeded our most optimistic expectations," the secretary-general added.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who co-chaired the press conference along with Ban and Microsoft founder Bill, said that "this is the broadest ever alliance assembled to fight for a common goal -- the war on poverty."

"This is the first time such global coalition has been assembled under the auspices of the United Nations, not talk, but to make specific commitments," he said.

Nearly 100 heads of state and government and representatives from international organizations, private sector, civil society, philanthropic foundations and faith-based groups attended the event, which was jointly convened by Ban and Miguel D'Escoto Brockmann, president of the UN General Assembly.

(Xinhua News Agency September 26, 2008)