EU development and security ministers are meeting in Dublin today to discuss the relationship between development and security.
The conference at Croke Park will be addressed by EU Development Commissioner Mr Poul Nielson and the Development ministers of Ireland, Malta and The Netherlands.
It is the largest NGO conference on foreign policy that will take place during the Irish EU Presidency.
Dóchas, an umbrella body for 34 Irish development agencies, said world leaders had promised a coalition against poverty but development was instead being sidelined in EU foreign policy.
"Where you have poverty and injustice you will have threats to security. Out of justice, and out of informed self-interest we must reduce poverty," said Mr Hans Zomer, director of Dóchas.
"The EU offers a very positive model of peaceful cooperation among states. It is particularly important at this time of enlargement and a new EU constitution that Europe builds on this tradition and places the
fight against poverty and injustice at the centre of its foreign policy," he said.
Mr Conall O'Caoimh, EU policy officer with Dóchas, said: "Without addressing the causes of poverty and injustice we will never be secure. In the long term you cannot keep terrorism or organised crime at a distance, you must resolve their causes - injustice and poverty.
"NGOs are calling for the EU to address the threats posed by poverty, hunger and unfair trade as strongly as they are fighting against terror."