INTERNATIONAL DAY FOR POVERTY ERADICATION TO BE OBSERVED ON 17 OCTOBER

                                                  Note No. 5754

                                                            14 October 2002

Note to Correspondents

INTERNATIONAL DAY FOR POVERTY ERADICATION TO BE OBSERVED ON 17 OCTOBER

To focus attention on the reality that one-fifth of humankind lives on a little more than one dollar a day, the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty will be observed at United Nations Headquarters on 17 October.

Eugen Brand, Director-General, ATD Fourth World Movement, will speak at a press conference at 11:15 a.m. in Room S-226, which will also feature Ambassador Jean-David Levitte, the Permanent Representative of France; Charles McNeill, Biodiversity Conservation and Poverty Reduction Adviser, Equator Initiative, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP); and Benson Venegas of Costa Rica’s Iniciativa Talamanca, a recipient of UNDP’s Equator Prize 2002.  UNDP is recognizing local successes in reducing poverty, and will award a $30,000 Equator Prize check to Iniciativa Talamanca and to 26 other communities in 19 countries around the world.

Also that day, a ceremony will be held in the United Nations Garden from 12:15 p.m. to 1:15 p.m., featuring testimony from people living in poverty and music by the Young People's Chorus of New York City.  The ceremony, at the Garden’s Commemorative Stone dedicated to the victims of poverty, will be addressed by, among others, Nitin Desai, Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs; a representative of the UNDP Administrator; Ambassador Levitte and Ambassador Michael Kafando, the Permanent Representative of Burkina Faso, who will share a personal testimony; Dr. Margaret Varma, of Rutgers University; Eugen Brand; and a grass-roots representative of UNDP's Equator Initiative.

Children from the Tapori Movement -- the children’s branch of ATD Fourth World -- will make a theatre presentation illustrating the support that children and their families need to strengthen their commitment to overcoming poverty.  They will lead members of the audience in creating a mosaic, which will be offered in the afternoon to the International Forum for Social Development.

From 3:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m., experts from the International Forum on Social Development, which is meeting at United Nations Headquarters on 16 and 17 October, will meet with delegates of the General Assembly’s Second and Third Committees in Conference Room 1.  An initiative of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs launched last February, the International Forum brings together personalities from governments, multilateral organizations, the private sector and civil society for an informal dialogue on global issues of development and social progress.

              - 2 -            Note No. 5754

                        14 October 2002

Background

Extreme poverty is a grim reality, affecting some 23 per cent of the world population.  While extreme income poverty –- defined by a dollar-per-day threshold -- has been declining in East Asia and the Pacific, scant progress has been made in all other regions.  Some 300 million people live in absolute poverty in sub-Saharan Africa, where malnutrition rose by 27 million during the 1990s.  Millions of children continue to die unnecessarily each year for lack of health care, clean water, decent housing or adequate nutrition.  At the Millennium Summit in 2000, world leaders committed themselves to cutting by half by 2015 the number of people living in extreme poverty –- currently some 1.2 billion people.

Poverty is not just an issue for developing countries.  The poorest people in rich countries still suffer severe deprivation, according to the UNDP Human Development Report 2002.  Most industrial countries have seen rising income inequalities in recent years, as well as growing poverty rates, functional literacy and long-term unemployment.  However, there is hope.  As UNDP’s Equator Initiative has found, local communities are finding innovative solutions to reducing poverty.

The Equator Initiative-- a partnership involving UNDP and several other partners -- is a global movement committed to identifying innovative community partnerships that reduce poverty through the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity.  It focuses on the area +/- 23.5 degrees from the Equator -- the area with the world’s greatest concentration of poverty and biodiversity wealth.  The winners of the Equator Prize 2002 were chosen from more than 420 communities in 77 countries.

The first observance of the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty was in 1987, spearheaded by ATD Fourth World.  This international non-governmental organization is dedicated to overcoming extreme poverty by exploring partnership with families living in chronic poverty, and by encouraging private citizens and public officials to join this effort.

The International Day has been observed at the United Nations since 1993, after the General Assembly (resolution 47/196) declared 17 October as the day aimed to promote awareness of the need to eradicate poverty and destitution in all countries. 

For more information, please visit the United Nations Web site at www.un.org/events/poverty; the Equator Initiative web site at www.EquatorInitiative.org; the Web sites of ATD Fourth World at www.atd-fourthworld.org and www.oct17.org; or contact Edoardo Bellando at the Department of Public Information, (212) 963-8275, bellando@un.org.    

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