Gro Harlem Brundtland has a mission. She said as much in her BBC Reith Lecture on population and health early this year. She will be saying it again this week in Okinawa at the followup meeting to July's G-8 summit.
"I want the fight against poverty to be our global cause as we straddle the millennium," she said. "Our goal must be to create a world where we can all live well fed and clothed, and with dignity. And we must do this without undermining future generations' ability to do the same."
As the director general of the World Health Organization, Brundtland comes to Japan to find ways to ensure that the 321 billion yen ($3 billion) pledged by Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori over the next five years to fight infectious diseases is spent with wisdom and concern. "Infectious diseases have come into focus because over the last couple of years we have gotten concrete evidence of the immense economic burden they put on national economies as well as individuals."