In today's global society, risk and suffering are everybody's problem and the needs of our neighbours are the needs of the whole human family, says the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Dr Rowan Williams said in his New Year's message that terrorism, natural disasters and the financial crisis had made the last 10 years "terrible and gruelling" but encouraged people not to lower their expectations of the future.

"The truth is that there are fewer and fewer problems in our world that are just local," he said.

"Suffering and risk spread across boundaries, even the biggest of all boundaries between the rich and the poor.

"Crises don't stop at national frontiers. It's one thing that terrorism and environmental challenge and epidemic disease have taught us."

The Archbishop encouraged people to play their part in seeing the fulfilment of the Millennium Development Goals, an ambitious set of targets agreed by world leaders in 2000 to see extreme global poverty halved by 2015.

He said that while the world was still falling short in the delivery of the MDGs, "that doesn't mean we can forget them or water them down".

"We've seen some signs of change; we can make more, by supporting efforts to help children out of poverty across the world – and locally as well – by campaigns to protect our environment, by keeping up pressure on our governments," he said.

"We share the risks. The big question is, can we share the hopes and create the possibilities?
Because it's when we do share the hopes that we really see what it is to belong together as human beings, discovering our own humanity as we honour the human dignity of others."

He went on to stress the importance of taking crises in geographically remote areas as seriously as the problems on our own doorstep.

"Above all, it's about not losing our hope for change and our love and respect for the dignity of everyone. In a world where risk and suffering are everybody's problem, the needs of our neighbours are the needs of the whole human family. Let's respond just as we do when our immediate family is in need or trouble. We may be amazed by the difference we can make."