International Year of Microcredit, 2005

Requests that the observance of the Year be a special occasion for giving impetus to microcredit programmes throughout the world;

Invites Governments, the United Nations system, all concerned non-governmental organizations, other actors of civil society, the private sector and the media to highlight and give enhanced recognition to the role of microcredit in the eradication of poverty, its contribution to social development and its positive impact on the lives of people living in poverty;

Invites all involved in the eradication of poverty to consider taking additional steps, including the strengthening of existing and emerging microcredit institutions and their capacities, so that credit and related services for self-employment and income-generating activities may be made available to an increasing number of people living in poverty, and to develop further, where appropriate, other microfinance instruments;

Invites the Secretary-General to submit to it at its fifty-eighth session a report containing a draft programme of action for the effective observance of the Year, in consultation with all relevant actors including United Nations bodies, under an item entitled “First United Nations Decade for the Eradication of Poverty (1997-2006)” to be included in the provisional agenda of that session.