International Day for the Eradication of Extreme Poverty by UN / ILO / UNESCO / Council Of Europe 8:48am 17th Oct, 2005   17th October, 2005    "Wherever men and women are condemned to live in extreme poverty, human rights are violated. To come together to ensure that these rights be respected is our solemn duty. " (F. Joseph Wresinski).    October 17, 2005.    "UN sees no need for hunger". (AFP)    The world has enough resources to feed its growing population if political leaders can get past "short-term interests", the head of the UN's food agency says.    The Food and Agriculture Organisation's (FAO) Senegalese director, Jacques Diouf, has made the comments to mark World Food Day.    "Today the world has the resources and technology to produce sufficient quantities of food not only to meet the demand of a growing population, but also to bring an end to hunger and poverty," Mr Diouf said.    He adds that he "dares to hope" that politicians would "make decisions based on the social harmony of a world of solidarity and peace, not on short-term interests that can lead to injustice and social unrest".    The United Nations estimates that 852 million people worldwide went without enough food in 2004. That is a rise of 10 million over the previous year, which indicates that food crises have become more frequent around the world.    Jean Ziegler, the UN special rapporteur on the right to food, says every day some 100,000 people die of malnutrition. "The right to food is a human right," stated the special rapporteur, who will present his full report to the UN in New York on October 27.    The chronic lack of food in sub-Saharan Africa is particularly worrying, with over a third of the region's population now considered malnourished.    The numbers of underfed soared from 88 million 1999 to 200 million in 2001.    Mr Ziegler complains that while the 191 countries in the UN spent a trillion dollars on arms in 2004, they reduced their donations to international organisations.    This year, the coffers of the World Food Program (WFP) were $290 million down, while the UN High Commissioner for Refugees needed an extra $241 million to run his operations properly.    The WFP has had to reduce food rations for thousands of refugees over the past few months, particularly in west Africa and the east African Great Lakes region, to well below the 2,100 calories needed for survival.    MESSAGES ON THE INTERNATIONAL DAY FOR THE ERADICATION OF POVERTY    Message of the President of the United Nations General Assembly, Jan Eliasson.    Extreme poverty remains a daily reality for more than a billion people who subsist on less than $1 a day. And half the peoples of the world are living on less than $2 a day. This is unacceptable.    The theme of today’s International Day for the Eradication of Poverty is: ‘Achieving the MDGs: Empowering the poorest of the poor’. This is a worthy focus. The United Nations must never lose sight of those who rely on us most: the poorest and most vulnerable in the world.    2005 has been a year of increased momentum for the cause of poverty eradication. This was evident at the World Summit, where leader after leader from all over the world stressed the importance of stepping up action on development.    We now have a clearer sense than ever before of what needs to be done to achieve the Millennium Development Goals. We have seen new commitments, both from developing countries and donors. We know that there must be a rapid acceleration of efforts if the goals are to be met, particularly in much of sub-Saharan Africa.    As 2005 draws to a close, the challenge before us is four-fold:    * The commitments made this year must be implemented.    * The trade talks in Hong Kong must deliver an outcome which advances the cause of development.    * The momentum generated this year must be maintained and built upon.    * And we must ensure that the full story about poverty in the world - both the enormous unmet needs, but also the progress many developing countries are making - is heard.    Message of the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Kofi A. Annan.    Poverty devastates families, communities and nations. It causes instability and political unrest and fuels conflict. Today, some 800 million people are chronically hungry and malnourished. Every day, 30,000 children die due to causes directly related to poverty.    Those figures lend acute urgency to the theme of this year’s International Day for the Eradication of Poverty — "Achieving the Millennium Development Goals: Empowering the poorest of the poor". The theme underscores the fact that poverty can be reduced only if we reach out to the poorest of the poor, including those often excluded from the development process. Only through partnerships with them, and by taking steps to tackle inequality, can we eradicate poverty in all its dimensions.    The Millennium Declaration and the Millennium Development Goals, adopted by 189 Heads of States and Governments in 2000, represent a partnership between rich and poor countries to fight extreme poverty and achieve concrete, measurable improvements in the lives of millions of men, women and children across the world. The Goals form a central framework for promoting human development — from ensuring all children receive primary school education to reducing the number of child and maternal deaths; from tackling the spread of HIV/AIDS and other major diseases to the overarching aim of halving the number of people living in extreme poverty and hunger by 2015.    In September 2005, world leaders gathered once again to deliver a unanimous endorsement of the Millennium Development Goals, as well as the broader UN development agenda agreed at UN conferences and summits. The leaders agreed to adopt, by 2006, comprehensive national development strategies to achieve that development agenda. Developed countries agreed to support developing country efforts through increased development assistance, through supporting agreements on debt relief for some of the world’s poorest countries, and through measures to ensure that trade can play its full part in promoting economic growth, employment and development for all.    Those commitments represent a breakthrough in the fight against poverty — promises that we must all work to ensure are translated into concrete actions, especially for the world’s poorest people. On this International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, let us resolve to build on the momentum that now exists. Let us work in partnerships between rich and poor to improve the opportunities of all human beings to build better lives.    17 Oct. 2005    Cooperating out of Poverty to achieve the Millennium Development Goals by empowering the poorest of the poor.    (Joint ILO-ICA Statement on the Occasion of the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty).    With almost half of the world’s population living on less than 2 dollars a day and 535 million working women and men surviving on 1 dollar a day or less, the need to reach out to the poorest of the poor is still imperative. A large number of these people live in rural areas, are part of the informal economy, or are otherwise socially, economically and politically excluded from the benefits of development. Cooperatives worldwide play an increasingly significant role in helping these people to find solutions on how to cooperate out of poverty by tapping their own resources, knowledge and strengths. Cooperatives contribute to develop the local economies where the poor live through their unique and strong linkages with the community. They enable poor people to have their voices heard in addition to improving their daily working and living conditions.    Because cooperatives are democratic organisations and owned by those who use their services, cooperatives are an ideal instrument to empower the poor. They are participatory, responsive to local needs and able to mobilize communities and help particularly vulnerable groups of people. For instance, cooperatives enable farmers to create economies of scale in the marketplace; they provide access to financial services including microfinance; and they provide low-income families with safe and reasonable priced consumer goods. Cooperative enterprises therefore have an important role to play in reducing poverty particularly at the community level.    For these reasons, the International Labour Organization and the International Cooperative Alliance (ICA) have joined forces to enable poor people to cooperate out of poverty through a Global Cooperative Campaign Against Poverty.    Cooperating Out of Poverty is a call to action to the world cooperative movement to join hands in fighting poverty. It aims to strengthen the capacity of cooperatives to make a significant contribution to poverty reduction by increasing their role in achieving the Millennium Development Goals particularly with regard to reducing poverty by half by the year 2015.    On this International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, the ICA and ILO call on cooperative organisations, development agencies, workers’ and employer organisations, and the United Nations system to commit to:    * Harnessing the financial and ethical strength of the world cooperative movement    * Demonstrating the cooperative response to poverty reduction globally    * Strengthening cooperative enterprise locally    * Building cooperative solidarity    * Living the Cooperative Principles    Message from the Director-General of UNESCO    We all think of poverty as representing one of the greatest threats to the stability of the world. With 2.8 billion men and women living on less than two dollars a day, we have to devote ever more urgent attention to the impoverishment that is undermining our societies and eroding even the idea of human security.    One of the Development Goals in the United Nations Millennium Declaration is to reduce this number by half by the year 2015. The message of this International Day is for us to pursue this objective untiringly, assisting in the implementation of national plans aimed at poverty relief and strengthening the mechanisms of international cooperation. At a time when a new world solidarity is required in order to give fresh impetus to development assistance, it is fitting that we, in our own fields of competence, correct the economic, social and cultural inequalities that are undermining present-day societies. In particular, educational and cultural concerns must continue to fuel international action as a whole because they are part of the very essence of development and the wealth of nations. Education for all, the reduction of the digital divide, the safeguarding of heritage and promotion of cultural diversity and sustainable development, which are among the main projects being undertaken by UNESCO, are not peripheral actions. They are at the heart of the fight against poverty. Today, on this International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, I wish therefore to launch an appeal for solidarity and responsibility in order to put a stop to indifference and come to the aid of the most vulnerable. This is a duty of solidarity as well as an act of reason and peace, to prevent the emergence of new sources of instability in the world. This year, the Organization will devote two days to debate and reflection on the links between the fight against poverty and the universal promotion of human rights. Four seminars and two public conferences will be organized at Headquarters in Paris, and numerous events will be organized away from Headquarters in order to create awareness in the international community with regard to these various challenges. I hope, of course, that at the end of this Day each and every one of us will feel deeply concerned by an essential question of our time that involves nothing less than our ability to act collectively in order to promote a true ethic of globalization and social dialogue on a world scale.    "Poverty is an insult to human dignity", said Terry Davis, Secretary General of the Council of Europe, on the occasion of the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, 17 October.    "As we mark this International Day, let us remember that Freedom from Want is one of the essential human freedoms. Let us remember millions of people in the world, including Europe, who are trapped in the vicious circle of poverty and exclusion and are in urgent need of our help to break free of despair.    Poverty is an unacceptable denial of human rights - the right to education, to non-discrimination, to health care, to decent housing, to social protection. As we build a better and fairer Europe, it is a scandal to see our fellow Europeans being subjected to the degrading treatment which results from poverty, forced to sell their organs, exploited sexually, trafficked like slaves.    Poverty and social exclusion walk hand in hand. This is why Council of Europe action against poverty is based on its Strategy for Social Cohesion.    International organisations, national governments and NGOs have a shared responsibility for building a fair and cohesive society, void of poverty and exclusion which are not acceptable in Europe of the 21st century. We must all join forces to turn into reality the dream of Father Joseph Wresinski, founder of ATD Quart Monde thanks to whom there is this International Day - his dream that the day will come when we will no longer need a Day for the Eradication of Poverty. But in the meantime, our Organisation will continue to defend a vision of Europe where all men and women are treated fairly and equally, and where their dignity is fully respected."    13 October 2005    "Hunger is Mass Killer far more Lethal than headline-grabbing Disasters", by James Morris. (WFP)    Away from the media glare of immediate mass disasters, more than 6 million people have already died this year from the little-noticed chronic disaster of hunger and related diseases, the head of the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has warned in an appeal to the global community to act now.    To save scores of millions of these lives would cost the developed world over a whole year far less than it spends each week on agricultural subsidies, WFP Executive Director James Morris said in a message marking World Food Day yesterday.    At a time when the world has been shocked by the horrific images of the earthquake in Pakistan, where some 20,000 lives were wiped out in a matter of a few seconds, the donor community must not to forget that away from cameras lurked the biggest killer of all, he noted.    “Few people realize that hunger and related diseases still claim more lives than AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis combined. What is worse, the number of chronically hungry is on the rise again, after decades of progress. We're losing ground,” he added.    “We believe that solving the problem of child hunger is the key to ending world hunger. If we can all work together to give today's children the chance to reach their full potential in adulthood and prepare them better as parents, we can actually break the inter-generational cycle of hunger and poverty.”    In an appeal to governments, aid organizations and the private sector to redouble their efforts, Mr. Morris estimated that by the end of yesterday 6,241,512 people will have already died of hunger and related diseases so far this year.    He contrasted developed countries with their social services, unemployment benefits, child allowances and income support, to the developing world, where there are very few safety nets, citing the current drought in Niger as an example.    “With any luck, next year will be a good year for Niger,” he said. “Maybe the rains will come on time, the locust swarms will be manageable and no other unexpected disaster will occur. If that happens, and it's a bit of a long shot, we can look forward to only about 450 of Niger's children dying every day of hunger related causes during the lean season. And that's the good news.”    In Haiti, the poorest country in the Western hemisphere, each year an estimated 38,000 Haitian children between the age of 0 and 5 die, nearly one out of three because of malnutrition. This means that every single hour a Haitian child dies before reaching the age of five, simply because he or she does not have enough to eat.    Mr. Morris said that of the total number of hungry children in the world, about 100 million were currently getting no assistance at all. To provide them and the estimated 15 million under-nourished expectant and nursing mothers who are also without support, would cost about $5 billion a year. Some $2 billion could be provided by the developing countries, leaving $3 billion for the developed world to provide.    “A lot of money? Not when you consider that between them, the developed countries spend far more than that every week on agricultural subsidies,” he added.
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