The Chief Executive Officer of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg has identified internet access as the key to eliminating extreme poverty in the world.
He made this assertion in New York, USA on Saturday at the 70th Annual General Assembly of the United Nations.
He also said that the company will be working closely with the UN in connecting refugee camps.
“When communities are connected, we can lift them out of poverty. We can and must do more. Connecting the world is one of the fundamental challenges of our generation,” he said.
According to Zuckerberg, the company will assist the UN in achieving its social development goal of eradicating extreme poverty by the year 2030, a goal the UN adopted a day before.
This also coincides with an earlier message he wrote on Facebook before the Saturday speech, stating that universal internet access should be treated as a matter of “global priority”.
In the message in which he mentioned collaborations with charity organisations like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, ONE campaign and others, Zuckerberg said: “We have a simple message. By giving people access to the tools, knowledge and opportunities of the Internet, we can give a voice to the voiceless and power to the powerless.”
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