FORUM ON MICRO-CREDIT AND POVERTY ERADICATION TO BE HELD AT HEADQUARTERS
Press Release
ENV/DEV/402
FORUM ON MICRO-CREDIT AND POVERTY ERADICATION TO BE HELD AT HEADQUARTERS
19970203 NEW YORK, 3 February (Department for Policy Coordination and Sustainable Development) -- The link between access to credit and poverty eradication in Africa will be the focus of a one-day briefing by practitioners, United Nations agencies, and non-governmental organizations to be held at Headquarters, on Thursday, 6 February.Following immediately after the Micro-credit Summit in Washington, D.C., the meeting will bring to New York several African practitioners for discussions on how improving access to credit can help empower Africa's poor, particularly women, to become more active participants in the development process, thereby freeing themselves from poverty. In the year 2000, the majority of the 1.5 billion people who will live on less than $1 a day will be from sub-Saharan Africa.
The meeting, entitled the Africa Advocacy Forum: Micro-credit and Poverty Eradication, is co-sponsored by several United Nations agencies and divisions, including the Office of the Special Coordinator for Africa and the Least Developed Countries in the Department for Policy Coordination and Sustainable Development, Department for Development Support and Management Services, Division for the Advancement of Women, Division of Social Policy Development, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), United Nations Capital Development Fund and the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, as well as a number of non-governmental organizations.
The briefing will be opened by Under-Secretary-General for Development Support and Management Services Yongjian Jin. Anwarul Karim Chowdhury, the Permanent Representative of Bangladesh, a co-sponsor of the Washington Micro- credit Summit, will also address the meeting. The Permanent Representative of Benin, Fassassi Adam Yacoubou, and the Permanent Representative of Zimbabwe, Machivenyika Tobias Mapuranga, will act as moderators.
The forum, which should be seen in the context of the United Nations Decade for Poverty Eradication, is in line with the outcomes of the Mid-term Review of the United Nations New Agenda for the Development of Africa in the 1990s, the Rome World Food Summit, the Copenhagen World Summit for Social Development and the Beijing Fourth World Conference on Women.
- 2 - Press Release ENV/DEV/402 3 February 1997
Among topics to be discussed are the impact that access to micro-credit could have on food security, women's economic empowerment, employment and self-employment, and provision of basic social services. Ways of linking traditional banking systems to micro-credit in order to facilitate the poor's access to credit will also be examined.
The briefing will be kicked off by a reception sponsored by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation at the Church Centre, 777 UN Plaza, on Wednesday evening, 5 February. For further information, contact the Office of the Special Coordinator for Africa and the Least Developed Countries, tel. (212) 963-4780 and (212) 963-2692.
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