FORUM AT UNITED NATIONS 15-16 NOVEMBER TO DISCUSS NOVEL WAYS TO REDUCE POVERTY

Economists, civil society leaders and field practitioners will meet at the United Nations on 15 and 16 November to explore new and innovative ways to reduce poverty and review policies and practices in poverty reduction strategies over the last ten years.

The main purpose of International Forum on the Eradication of Poverty, to be held in Conference Room 2, “is not to reflect on the past, but to identify the main challenges ahead and the concrete strategies to combat poverty in its various dimensions”, said Donald Lee, Officer-in-Charge of the Social Perspective on Development Branch at the Department of Economic and Social Affairs.

The event, which will bring together representatives from Government, academia, the private sector, civil society, international organizations and others, will be addressed, among others, by Prof. Nicholas Negroponte, Founder of One Laptop per Child; Iqbal Quadir, Founder of Grameen Phone; and Prof. Pedro Sanchez, Director of the Millennium Villages Project.

Other speakers include Prof. Peter Townsend of the United Kingdom-based Townsend Centre for International Poverty, Kenyan activist Wahu Kaara and Jan Peterson, Member of the High-Level Commission on the Legal Empowerment of the Poor.

Topics will include innovative approaches to poverty reduction, giving women rights to economic assets, facilitating access to loans and breaking the cycle of poverty between generations.  Innovative experiences, such as the Millennium Villages Project, Grameen Phone and the $100 laptop, will be examined.

Since poverty is both an economic and a social problem, the Forum will discuss not only issues such as access to resources, trade and education, but also human rights and governance, Mr. Lee said.  And since the role of business sector is crucial, Bharat Wakhlu, President of Tata Inc. USA, will join the Forum to address the role of the private sector.

“What makes the Forum different is that its purpose is to discuss what needs to be done over the coming decade to eradicate poverty and hunger.  The Forum will need to address the key developments in policy and practice and to share the lessons learnt”, Mr. Lee said.

”Above all, the Forum is intended to send a strong message that a continued and enhanced commitment to poverty eradication by all is needed to ensure that the promises made at the Millennium Summit and the 2005 World Summit are indeed delivered,” he said.  “To do any less than this would be to leave the poor and marginalized trapped in a vicious cycle of poverty and exclusion”.

The event, which marks the end of the First United Nations Decade for the Eradication of Poverty (1997-2006), is organized by the Department of Economic and Social Affairs and 14 entities of the United Nations system, in cooperation with the German Development Agency (GTZ) and various non-governmental organizations.  These include International Movement ATD Fourth World, the International Cooperative Alliance, the Committee for the Promotion and Advancement of Cooperatives, the NGO Sub-Committee for the Eradication of Poverty and the Feminist Task Force of the Global Call to Action against Poverty.

Background

The Forum will discuss several fresh ways to address poverty.  One approach argues that substantial poverty reduction occurs if productive capacities are developed in such a way that the working-age population becomes more productively and fully employed, the prices of wage goods fall and the fiscal base is expanded.

Policymakers should start this process, in which the development of productive capacities and the growth of demand reinforce each other.  Stronger productive capacities reduce poverty by creating jobs in expanding economic activities with higher productivity.  Government-assisted lowering of prices, particularly food prices, helps to relieve poverty, while a stronger productive base increases Government revenues.

In turn, poverty reduction builds productive capacities by stimulating greater consumer demand, greater entrepreneurship and risk-taking and greater expenditure on education, health, nutrition and training.

Another approach focuses on Government intervention to promote financial development in a non-traditional way called “pro-market activism”.  This involves a limited public sector role in financial markets, recognizing the markets’ institutional efficiency.  But Government action is needed in the short run, because newly built institutions take time to grow, and Governments play core roles, such as maintaining economic stability, creating the right policies and ensuring regulation and supervision.

Other practitioners see a great opportunity for expanding the provision of finance in rural areas by tapping on the potential of local Governments.  The recent wave of decentralization in Africa has seen greater transfer of resources to local bodies, accompanied by greater accountability.  Local Governments in developing countries can reach remote villages and record people’s assets -- their land, their houses, their livestock, their fruit gardens.  These are the collaterals that people have and local Governments can make them usable by recording them and giving them the necessary legal endorsements, while making people accountable and protecting transactions.

Technological innovations have given rise to new forms of inequality that can perpetuate and exacerbate poverty.  But technology also presents new opportunities and expanding access to information and communication technologies (ICT) is becoming increasingly important in anti-poverty efforts.  ICT can facilitate the delivery of education and health information, provide distance learning and permit the pooling of knowledge and expertise in areas such as health or agriculture.  It allows users to share and access information more rapidly and for less cost than traditional means and leads to increased productivity and growth.

Breaking the cycle of poverty in the least developed countries -- a group of 50 countries with gross national income per capita of less than $750 per year -- requires a beneficial integration into the world economy by improving their access to external finance, international markets, ICT and technology.  It also requires building productive capacities, promoting trade, investment and employment, tapping latent entrepreneurship, traditional knowledge, hidden or underutilized resources, and strengthening the links between dynamic sectors with the rest of the economy.  New opportunities are provided by the creative industry, thanks to the world-class musicians and international brand names from the poorest countries, as well as by tourism.

Poverty is also increasingly seen as more than an economic issue and as a challenge to human rights, since the very poor struggle daily to preserve their dignity and move themselves out of poverty.  The World Bank, other institutions and major human rights non-governmental organizations have started to look at the benefits of a human rights approach, which also engages people living in extreme poverty in the planning, implementation and evaluation of the initiatives that concern them.

For further information please visit www.un.org/esa/socdev/poverty/PovertyForum/index.html or contact at the Department of Public Information Edoardo Bellando, 212 963 8275 or Franck Kuwonu, 212 963 8264, kuwonu@un.org.

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For information media • not an official record