The Minister of State at the Department of Foreign Affairs, Ms Liz O’Donnell, is one of 50 state leaders attending an international conference summit in Mexico which hopes to renew the global assault on poverty.
Opened today by Mexican President, Mr Vicente Fox, the meeting is the first to be held jointly by the UN, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organisation.
The key issue at the summit is expected to be the sharp decline in developing aid from rich countries over the past decade.
US President Mr George W. Bush, Cuban President Mr Fidel Castro, King Abdullah of Jordan were among the line-up of leaders and senior ministers scheduled to address the meeting in Monterrey.
The leaders are expected to endorse the pre-agreed Monterrey Consensus, a 16-page framework calling for a new partnership between rich and poor nations
The document embodies plans for increased aid from the rich, more private investment in the developing world and lower trade barriers. In return, developing countries would commit themselves to clean government, democracy and open markets.
"We will build together - developing and developed countries - the bridges between economic growth and human development, between opening up and local development, between economic efficiency and the well-being of citizens," Mr Fox said.
Announcing an €1.5 million increase in the Republic’s development aid, Ms O’Donnell called on richer nations to increase their efforts to meet the UN targets.
She also argued for a new approach to debt relief based on human development indicators, such as health and education, rather than solely economic approach currently used.
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan later told the summit that the Monterrey initiative was critical to the success of an internationally accepted campaign to halve the number of people - currently 1.2 billion - living in extreme poverty by 2015.
Additional reporting AFP