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"The poorest of the world have been patient, but a hundred years is too long to wait for justice...to make poverty history, we need to make new history today, and make it happen now." - British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, 2008. Eliminating World Poverty brings together, in an edited collection, revised versions of many of the papers presented at a major symposium on the demanding theme of eliminating world poverty - global goals and regional progress. The Institute of Policy Studies hosted the symposium in March 2009. The Symposium was prompted by a desire to assess progress towards meeting the ambitious objectives embraced by the Millennium Summit at the United Nations in September 2000. These Millennium Development Goals, as the objectives are called, are due to be achieved by 2015 - barely six years away. A more specific aim of the symposium was to evaluate the progress thus far in the South Pacific region and assess the options available to policy-makers for overcoming the obstacles of sustainable development. Jonathan Boston is Professor of Public Policy and Director of the Institute of Policty Studies at Victoria University of Wellington. He has published widely on public management, social policy, tertiary education, comparative government, and New Zealand politics. In recent years he has been actively involved in the policy issues surrounding climate change.