Spanish actor Antonio Banderas has been named goodwill ambassador for the UN Development Program (UNDP).

'In his new role as an advocate for the poor, Antonio Banderas will set his sights on the Millennium Development Goals, a set of eight globally agreed targets that seek to halve world poverty by 2015 by combating hunger, disease, illiteracy, environment degradation and discrimination against women,' the UNDP said Wednesday.

'Poverty robs us of our potential as a people, preventing us from being all that we can be,' Banderas said.

'This is why it is so important to mobilise all of our efforts to defeat it, especially if today we have the knowledge, the tools and the resources to do it,' the actor said.

He said that he will work with the UNDP to push for actions directed toward achieving the Millennium Development Goals at all levels of society.

--IANS/EFE

rd/mj