International day for the eradication of poverty

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

1. The United Nations World Day for the Eradication of Poverty has been celebrated on 17th October every year since 1996. In December 1995, the General Assembly adopted resolution 50/107 proclaiming the First United Nations Decade for the Eradication of Poverty (1997-2006). In December 1996, resolution 51/178 laid down the theme for the Decade as a whole which is "Eradicating poverty is an ethical, social, political and economic imperative of humankind."

2. The World Day needs to be seen in the wider context of the UN World Summit on Social Development in Copenhagen in 1995 and the commitments that were entered into for the eradication of poverty. These were reinforced at the summit in Geneva in 2000.

3. In Europe, the idea of a day highlighting extreme poverty and social exclusion has been particularly associated with the work of Father Joseph Wresinski and has been actively promoted by, among others, the organization he founded called ATD Quart Monde. They have especially emphasized the importance of the voice of the most marginalized being heard.

4. The International Day is an opportunity to make connections between global poverty and especially poverty in the developing world and poverty in developed countries such as EU Member States.

5..Recent EU developments on tackling poverty and social exclusion are especially relevant to the focus of the International Day. The Open Method of Co-ordination on social inclusion agreed at the European Council in Lisbon is a key issue in this regard. The main elements of this are:

- setting common EU objectives for combating poverty and social exclusion (agreed at the Nice Summit);

- each Member State drawing up its own National Action Plan against poverty and social exclusion (NAPincl) on the basis of a common framework with the purpose of achieving the agreed common objectives (all submitted plans in June 2001);

- encouraging a process of mutual learning and dialogue between Member States which will stimulate innovation and the sharing of best practice (a new Social Exclusion Programme has just been agreed between the Parliament, the Council and the Commission following a process of conciliation in September 2000 and will be implemented from January 2001);

- agreeing and collecting data on a set of common indicators across the EU in order to compare policies and to measure progress in reducing poverty and social exclusion (an expert sub-group of the Social Protection Committee is currently finalizing a report for submission to the Laeken Council);

- involving all stakeholders (the social partners, businesses, non-governmental organizations and those experiencing poverty and social exclusion) in the process;

- putting in place arrangements to ensure the co-ordination of the process and regular monitoring and reporting on progress.

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