Development Commissioner Andris Piebalgs said he was determined “to end the lottery of where you live determines how you live,” during a speech at the UN conference on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) ahead of the UN High Level Summit on MDGs in September. “Last week, European leaders reaffirmed their commitment towards the Millennium Development Goals and their development aid targets by 2015,” he added, highlighting that G8 and G20 leaders in Canada had also expressed their commitment to achieving these international standards for protecting the world’s most vulnerable people from today’s deadliest threats, such as extreme poverty, hunger and child mortality.