STATEMENT BY SECRETARY-GENERAL LAUNCHING INTERNATIONAL YEAR FOR ERADICATION OF POVERTY
Press Release
SG/SM/5853
STATEMENT BY SECRETARY-GENERAL LAUNCHING INTERNATIONAL YEAR FOR ERADICATION OF POVERTY
19951215 ADVANCE TEXT Following is the text of the statement to be made by Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali at 10:30 a.m. on Monday, 18 December, in the Trusteeship Council to launch the International Year for the Eradication of Poverty:The leaders of the world met in Copenhagen last March. They committed themselves to eradicating poverty on our planet. They pledged decisive national actions and international cooperation. They recognized in this mission an ethical, social, political and economic imperative of humankind.
The facts about poverty are now well known. But too often they are ignored. More than 1.3 billion people are struggling to survive on less than one single dollar each day. Five years ago the number was 300,000,000 persons fewer. In 1990, the per capita income of the wealthiest 20 per cent of the world's population was 60 times greater than that of the poorest 20 per cent. Thirty years earlier, it was only 30 times greater.
More than 1 billion persons lack access to basic needs like safe water and sanitation. Over 3 million people die each year from preventable diseases like tuberculosis and malaria.
More than 130 million children, mostly girls, do not go to school. In the one hour that we are dedicating to this ceremony, 1400 children below five years of age will die from malnourishment and preventable childhood diseases.
How can we allow this to go on?
An ethical progression of humanity takes place when moral ideals lead to specific legal obligations. The next step in this progression must be to accept that persisting poverty is not only inconsistent with social harmony and a durable political order, but morally wrong.
It is a major cause of violent crime, ethnic clashes and social disarray. How can one expect the poor to feel any real sense of commitment to social structures, when they appear to nourish poverty? Small wonder that heads of State and government at the fiftieth anniversary session of the
United Nations General Assembly unanimously recognized that action to secure global peace, security and stability will be futile unless the economic and social needs of people are addressed.
Today we are aware of yet another compelling reason for giving priority to poverty eradication. The foundation of democracy is the idea of equality. It confers on each citizen the same capacity to participate in the political process as every other. But poverty denies the growth of democracy where it is sought. It cripples it where it exists. Poverty abridges, indeed denies, this capacity.
Consider also the economic dimension. Poverty and unemployment represent wasted assets. Their redress spurs increased production, higher productivity and greater prosperity all around. An economy in which absolute poverty persists is an inefficient economy.
What do we need to do? There is no shortage of analysis and recommendations. There are many national and global efforts from which we can learn some lessons. But we need specific policies:
Policies that will increase the access of the poor to productive resources. Policies that will improve and widen opportunities to use their skills. Policies that will not underestimate the willingness or the capacity of the poor to work for their own advancement. Policies that acknowledge that poor families will readily make sacrifices to put a child through school, to improve a small plot of land, to set up some small business. Policies that do not talk down to people or assume that they have to be provided with pre- packaged schemes. Policies that are guided by the priorities of people, their perception of opportunities, and their willingness to work for their own advancement. Policies that encourage localized community-based initiatives where participation is effective and meaningful. Policies which supplement income-generating measures and skill enhancement with action to reduce discrimination, exclusion and marginalization. Policies that focus on the "feminization of poverty"; on the fact that more than two thirds of the world's poor are female. Policies that integrate specific welfare schemes and measures with the mainstream of economic policy, and that economic dimension with the social and political agenda of a society. And policies that are informed by sensitivity to the truth that sudden situations of crisis, including wars, ethnic conflicts and natural calamities, hit the poor hardest.
These policies must be defined not just at the national but at the local level. Why then should poverty alleviation be a global concern?
I believe it to be so, for three reasons. First, because every country in the world faces the challenge of removing absolute poverty in some measure. Second, the eradication of poverty is a human imperative that obliges us to act regardless of where it occurs. Third, because the displacement of people,
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the spread of conflict and violence, the dispersal of disease and the consequences of social stress are transnational, indeed global.
This global dimension is being recognized. Practically every major United Nations declaration on development includes a commitment to poverty alleviation. Contrary to popular perception, 80 per cent of the United Nations budget is invested in activities related directly to the long-term improvement in peoples' lives.
The Copenhagen commitments marked a significant advance. They speak of the "eradication", and not just the "alleviation", of poverty. They require countries to indicate a target date for this eradication. These are commitments made at the highest political level. They reflect the primacy placed on this problem in the continuum of global conferences from the Children's Summit in 1990 to the Women's Conference two months ago. Each drew a link between its own central theme and the pervasive issue of poverty, incorporating the problem in its own agenda.
Only last week, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) released its Report on the State of the World's Children showing accountable progress in fulfilling the promise of the 1990 World Summit for Children. Child mortality in developing countries has been reduced by more than half between 1960 and 1995. Immunization rates are up from less than 10 per cent in the late 1970s to 80 per cent in most countries in 1994, saving nearly 3 million lives each year. Smallpox has been eradicated, large areas of the world are becoming polio-free. The elimination of guinea-worm disease is in sight. The simple technique of oral rehydration is saving 1 million lives a year. Primary school enrolment is up from 48 per cent in the 1960s to 77 per cent in 1995.
Progress in each of these sectors strikes a blow at poverty, its causes and its effects. Similar follow-up in respect of the other international conferences will bring equally impressive results. This will require integration of these global commitments into national plans, strategies and programmes and substantially enhanced contributions by the donor community.
Individual national strategies will, of course, differ. A country where rapid growth is raising the general level of income may focus on areas or groups that are "left behind". Agrarian reform may be a crucial need in countries with an unproductive pattern of landholdings. Countries in transition from a planned to a market economy may need to devise measures to protect social services. Safety nets for the old and the infirm, targeted assistance for mothers and children, population policies, public support for basic health and education services, for safe water and sanitation and for housing the homeless will be of importance practically everywhere.
Simply put, there should be, and can be, no preconceptions. National strategies must reflect national conditions and priorities. But the goal has
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been defined. It is universal. It is morally and politically binding. The International Year for the Eradication of Poverty provides a useful opportunity for further advances in this direction.
I would urge every country to set in place -- in the course of 1996 -- a process for formulating a strategy for the eradication of absolute poverty as envisaged in the Copenhagen Declaration. Those countries that have a strategy in place should, in 1996, announce the target date for its realization. The strategies and target dates should be widely publicized so that each can learn from the other's experience and example.
Immediately after the World Summit for Social Development, I sent a letter to all heads of State and government. Last week, I wrote to them again urging them to take the necessary steps.
The international community must support such national strategies. Within the United Nations system, practically every agency, fund and programme has a contribution to make within its mandate. Active inter-agency coordination will be essential to enable the United Nations system to support the development and implementation of integrated national strategies for poverty eradication. The Administrative Committee on Coordination has set up three task forces for this purpose: one on the enabling environment, chaired initially by the World Bank; one on basic services for all, chaired by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), and one on sustainable livelihoods and employment, chaired by the International Labour Organisation (ILO). Coordination arrangements will also be strengthened on the advancement and empowerment of women.
At the intergovernmental level, we need an integrated approach to the global conference follow-up. The contribution of each organization should focus on priority objectives cutting across the outcomes of the Conferences themselves. I welcome, for example, the decision by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Executive Board to make poverty eradication the Programme's overriding priority. This will mean that all of its activities will be geared towards, and measured against, that ultimate goal.
Well articulated national strategies, and a better coordinated United Nations system providing support for such strategies, will help energize the formulation and implementation of anti-poverty programmes. But to make a real impact we have to allocate more resources, national and international, for poverty alleviation. The bulk of these will have to be domestic. Governments will have to give priority to income- and employment-generation programmes targeted at people in poverty. They will have to examine national budgets and redeploy resources from accounts such as arms expenditures and subsidies which benefit mainly the well-to-do. Their case for higher international assistance will be greatly strengthened if governments are seen to be making a real effort to mobilize resources domestically.
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This is what I see as the spirit of the 20:20 proposal. It links domestic effort and international assistance for basic social services. But the prospect for more international assistance is bleak. The proportion of industrial country gross national product (GNP) going to aid is not only far from the United Nations target of 0.7 per cent but is declining. The flow of resources to multilateral institutions is under pressure. The International Development Association (IDA), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the UNDP, which devote the bulk of their resources to poverty alleviation, are facing difficulties in maintaining contributions.
The flow of aid is a transaction between bilateral and multilateral donors and an individual programme country. The need for assistance and the adequacy of the flow is clearest at this level. I propose that the formulation of national anti-poverty strategies should be followed by a systematic consideration of these strategies in the aid coordination forums, including consultative groups and round tables that already exist. If the donor community will respond generously and responsibly in every specific case, the aggregate global campaign for poverty eradication can help to reverse the decline in concessional assistance.
This campaign concerns all actors and sectors of society. Leaders of the world of commerce and industry, professional organizations and associations of labour, the media, the educational community, and all men and women of goodwill, have their own responsibility to work in support of this common objective. To the thousands of non-governmental organizations, formal or informal, already active in practical tasks to improve the circumstance of those in poverty, I offer my deepest thanks, encouragement and support.
And to those in poverty I send this message. We are listening. We ask you to tell us how we can work to meet your aspirations; not for you, but with you.
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