Global technology and global flows of capital, goods and services have brought us closer to rapidly emerging economies such as China and India, to mention just two.

Yet, at the same time, the world remains too unequal, too unsafe and too unsustainable. Nearly a billion people still live in abject or extreme poverty, unable to benefit from the new global connections – while those very same connections have made this inequality more visible, both to people in the developed and developing countries or worlds.

By 2010, half of the world’s poorest people will be in countries at risk of, or recovering from, conflict. The early years of this century have shown us, in the starkest way possible, that developed countries cannot pull up the drawbridge from conflict within and between such fragile states.

Climate change, which threatens all our future, is a reality right now for many in the developing world. Recently, I met with people forced from their homes by flash floods in northern Kenya. “Climate change”, one of the local leaders told me, “hits us hardest.”

The world has shown before that it can come together to form a shared vision for ending world poverty. The Millennium Development Goals – agreed at the United Nations Summit in September 2000 – show what is possible when nation-states co-operate out of mutual interest and a shared sense of moral responsibility.

Yet, the aims set out by world leaders in 2000 – to tackle hunger, illiteracy and sickness – are now at risk from global threats such as climate change, conflict and economic instability.

These threats are undoubtedly global in their nature and their impact; so our solutions must be global, too. Yet the pillars of our present international system, formed some 60 years ago, no longer reflect the world as it is today.

They were not built to deal with challenges such as climate change; nor do they reflect the importance of energy – or the importance of emerging economic powers such as India and China.

That is why the British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, has called for reform of our international institutions to ensure that they are fit for the 21st century, and are equipped to deliver for the world’s poorest people. Such reform is timely – and is needed in the areas of trade, conflict, climate change and the way international institutions themselves do business.

We need a global trade that benefits all countries. Trade is the main engine of economic growth, and economic growth is indeed the surest route out of poverty for countries and individuals alike.

We must both consider and agree new global trade rules, and create new global institutions so that not some but all can benefit from change.

Too often, the international community’s response in countries emerging from conflict is too little, too late and too fragmented. Those failures are measured in the genocide in Rwanda in 1994, and the ongoing tragedy in Darfur.

We need a package of measures to better respond to conflict, including greater leadership by the UN, faster deployment of skilled civilians to help rebuild shattered institutions, as well as more rapid and flexible funding.

We must also work internationally to tackle climate change and environmental degradation. For, if we do not take the necessary action, we risk condemning the world’s poorest people to generations of further poverty.

Above all, we must direct our international efforts towards creating a post-Kyoto Agreement that sets a global limit for greenhouse gases, and a credible way of reaching it.

We also need a reformed World Bank for both the development and the environment, to provide the incentives and funding for developed countries to safeguard their natural resources, protect their vulnerable communities and grow in a low-carbon way.

UK’s 800 million-pound sterling Environmental Transformation Fund will form one cornerstone of this work. International institutions should become more representative of the world we live in. The IMF and the World Bank should change their Boards and voting rights to reflect the world’s changing economic balance.

International institutions must also reform to ensure better coordination and less duplication. This seemingly technical agenda was made real for me through one girl’s story.

After the Asian tsunami in December 2004, doctors became worried and concerned over a case of a little girl with measles, fearing an outbreak of the disease. Yet, her quick recovery led the very doctors to a very peculiar discovery.

The measles symptoms were in fact a result of the girl receiving the same vaccine three times – from three different organizations!

We are closer to our global neighbours than ever before. Whether facing conflict, the spread of disease or the impact of climate change, there is no longer an ‘over there’ and ‘over here’. So, we must find shared solutions to our shares problems. I believe that we have the knowledge and the skills to make our world more equal, safer and more sustainable. We must now show the commitment needed to make that change.