| As the first United Nations Decade on the Eradication of Poverty (1997-2006) draws to a close, a brief retrospect of poverty worldwide, and the situation in which millions still find themselves, may prove a timely and necessary recollection.
When the General Assembly first adopted its strategic plan to expunge world penury in 1993, it recognised that "poverty is a complex and multi-dimensional problem with origins in both the national and international domains, and that its eradication in all countries, in particular in developing countries, has become one of the priority development objectives for the 1990s in order to promote sustainable development" (General Assembly resolution 48/183, 1993).
Data, underscoring both the extent and devastation of the issue, continually emerges.
— Today, across the world, 1.3 billion people live on less than one dollar a day; 3 billion live on under two dollars a day; 1.3 billion have no access to clean water; 3 billion have no access to sanitation; 2 billion have no access to electricity. (James Wolfenson, The Other Crisis, Speech to the World Bank, October 1998).
— The 48 poorest countries account for less than 0.4 per cent of global exports.” (The Human Development Report 2000, United Nations Development Programme, p.82).
— The combined wealth of the world’s 200 richest people hit $1 trillion in 1999; the combined incomes of the 582 million people living in the 43 least developed countries is $146 billion. (The Human Development Report 2000, United Nations Development Programme, p.82).
Whilst, of course, the accretion of such data is easily achieved, the citing of the causes of global poverty is not as unproblematic. Corruption on the part of national leaders; a vicious cycle of inter-national and inter-institutional debt; low savings, investments, and resource appropriation on the part of individual nations; dissolutions of legal structures and the rule of law; the geo-political, historical and cultural landscapes; and inequalities in global trade, are merely several of the fundamental problems upon which institutionalised poverty is founded and persists.
The former Secretary General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, once insightfully remarked that “almost half the world’s population lives on less than two dollars a day, yet even this statistic fails to capture the humiliation, powerlessness and brutal hardship that is the daily lot of the world’s poor” (Speech on the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, 17 October 2000).
It is only in the course of witnessing, ordinarily through the news media, the plight of those affected by poverty, that citizens of highly developed countries recall the situation of those penury touches most – though even this is a brief observation, a chance glimpse, of a much more persistent affliction.
Assistance by international charities, aid programs, outreach actions and institutional funding assist – though only to a degree – in alleviating the problem. The presence of corporate human rights abuses, ethnic atrocities and a monumental global income disparity, severely constrict and undermine actions attempting to expunge global poverty.
The United Nations Decade on the Eradication of Poverty is an encouraging nucleus of a much broader aid compound – a compound which must not only be comprehensive, but systematic, in its implementation. Above all, though, its actions cannot cease in the year 2006.
As the Report of the Secretary-General on the Observance of the International Year for the Eradication of Poverty (1996) and recommendations for the rest of the Decade asserts:
“While there is reason to be encouraged about progress with poverty reduction, there is even greater reason for concern … It is appropriate to recall that poverty eradication is far more than just a national or international issue. Every individual has the capacity to make a contribution - through personal expressions of human solidarity, through lifestyle changes and through participation in community programmes. Networks of people committed to poverty eradication are a necessary part of what must become a successful global campaign” (p.13).
Further information may be found at the Websites of:
The United Nations
The First United Nations Decade on the Eradication of Poverty (1997-2006)
The Message of the United Nations Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, on the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty | 
