Implementation of the 1st United Nations Decade for the Eradication of Poverty (1997-2006), Including the Proposal to Establish a World Solidarity Fund for Poverty Eradication

A/RES/56/207View PDF

Who adopted this document and its mandates?

A Resolution of the General Assembly, under agenda item 103 Implementation of the 1st United Nations Decade for the Eradication of Poverty, published in 2002.

What’s in this document?

41 operative paragraphs

Stresses that the United Nations Decade for the Eradication of Poverty (1997-2006) should contribute to achieving the targets of halving, by 2015, the proportion of the world’s people whose income is less than one dollar a day and the proportion of people who suffer from hunger, through decisive national action and strengthened international cooperation;

Reaffirms, as set out in the United Nations Millennium Declaration,Error: Reference source not found that success in meeting the objectives of development and poverty eradication depends, inter alia, on good governance within each country, and that it also depends on good governance at the international level, on transparency in the financial, monetary and trading systems and on commitment to an open, equitable, rule-based, predictable and non-discriminatory multilateral trading and financial system;

Recognizes that success in meeting the objective of poverty eradication requires an enabling environment that encourages, inter alia, sustainable development, including economic growth that favours the poor and that upholds human rights, including the right to development, democratic principles and the rule of law, at all levels;

Also recognizes the responsibility of Governments to adopt policies aimed at preventing and combating corrupt practices at the national and international levels;

Calls upon all countries to formulate and implement outcome-oriented national strategies and programmes, setting time-bound targets for poverty reduction, including the target of halving, by 2015, the proportion of people living in extreme poverty, which requires the strengthening of national action and international cooperation;

Calls for strengthened efforts at all levels to implement fully and effectively the United Nations Millennium Declaration, as well as the relevant resolutions and decisions of the United Nations and all agreements and commitments adopted at the major United Nations conferences and summits and their follow-up, as they relate to the eradication of poverty, with a view to achieving tangible results;

Stresses the importance of tackling the root causes of poverty and the necessity of meeting the basic needs of all, and in this context emphasizes the fundamental role in the eradication of poverty of strong and sustained economic growth that favours the poor, creates substantive expansion in productive opportunities and employment, increases incomes, promotes equitable income distribution and minimizes environmental degradation;

Also stresses the importance of increasing access to and control over resources, including land, skills, knowledge, capital and social connections, for the poor, in particular women, and of improving access for all to basic social services;

Recognizes the importance of the adoption of appropriate policy responses to the challenges of globalization at the national level, in particular by pursuing sound and stable domestic policies, including sound macroeconomic and social policies, inter alia, those contributing to increased income of the poor, in order to realize the objective of the eradication of poverty;

Urges the strengthening of international assistance to developing countries in their efforts to alleviate poverty, inter alia, by creating an enabling environment that would facilitate the integration of developing countries into the world economy, improving their market access, facilitating the flow of financial resources and implementing fully and effectively all initiatives already launched regarding debt relief for developing countries, and emphasizes that the international community should consider further measures that would lead to effective, equitable, development-oriented and durable solutions to the external debt and debt-servicing problems of developing countries so that they can share equally in the benefits of globalization, cope with its negative effects, avoid being marginalized in the process of globalization and achieve full integration into the world economy;

Reaffirms that, within the context of overall action for the eradication of poverty, special attention should be given to the multidimensional nature of poverty and the national and international conditions and policies that are conducive to its eradication, fostering, inter alia, the social and economic integration of people living in poverty, thus empowering them to participate in decision-making with regard to the policies that affect them, the promotion and protection of all human rights and fundamental freedoms for all, including the right to development, bearing in mind the relationship between all human rights and development, and an efficient, transparent and accountable public service and administration;

Recognizes that the eradication of poverty and the achievement and preservation of peace are mutually reinforcing;

Reaffirms that the causes of poverty should be addressed in an integrated way, taking into account the importance of the need for the empowerment of women and sectoral strategies in such areas as education, development of human resources, health, human settlements, rural development, productive employment, population, environment, freshwater, food security and migration, and the specific needs of disadvantaged and vulnerable groups, and in such a way as to increase opportunities and choices for people living in poverty and to enable them to build and strengthen their assets so as to achieve social and economic development; and in this regard encourages countries to develop their national poverty reduction policies in accordance with their national priorities including, where appropriate, through poverty reduction strategy papers;

Welcomes the efforts made by the United Nations system to assign priority to the eradication of poverty and to enhance coordination, and in this regard encourages the organizations of the United Nations system, including the Bretton Woods institutions, and other partners in development to continue to support all Member States, members of specialized agencies and United Nations observers in carrying forward their own strategy for the achievement of the objectives of the Decade;

Also welcomes the holding of the International Conference on Financing for Development at Monterrey, Mexico, from 18 to 22 March 2002, and encourages Governments and stakeholders to take concrete initiatives and actions in support of financing for development;

Further welcomes the convening of the World Summit on Sustainable Development, to be held at Johannesburg, South Africa, from 26 August to 4 September 2002, as a significant opportunity to renew our commitment to sustainable development, the international development goals, Agenda 21,⁷ and the principles contained in the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development;⁸

⁷Report of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, Rio de Janeiro, 3–14 June 1992 (United Nations publication, Sales No. E.93.I.8 and corrigenda), vol. I: Resolutions adopted by the Conference, resolution 1, annex II.

⁸Ibid., annex I.

Notes the outcome of the Fourth Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization, held at Doha from 9 to 13 November 2001;⁹

⁹See A/C.2/56/7, annex.

Recognizes the importance of the expansion of international trade as an engine of growth and development and, in this context, the need for expeditious and complete integration of developing countries and countries with economies in transition into the international trading system, in full cognizance of the opportunities and challenges of globalization and liberalization and taking into account the circumstances of individual countries, in particular the trade interests and development needs of developing countries;

Also recognizes the critical need for countries to undertake economic, institutional and regulatory reforms to support wide trade liberalization and to create an enabling environment in which trade can truly serve as an engine for economic growth and development, and in this regard calls upon the international community to continue to support the capacity-building efforts of developing countries, taking into account their national circumstances;

Reaffirms that all Governments and the United Nations system should promote an active and visible policy of mainstreaming a gender perspective in all policies and programmes aimed at the eradication of poverty, at both the national and the international level, and encourages the use of gender analysis as a tool for the integration of a gender dimension into planning the implementation of policies, strategies and programmes for the eradication of poverty;

Expresses its appreciation to the developed countries that have agreed to and have reached the target of 0.7 per cent of their gross national product for overall official development assistance, and calls upon the developed countries that have not yet done so to strengthen their efforts to achieve the agreed target as soon as possible and, where agreed, within that target, to earmark 0.15 to 0.20 per cent of their gross national product for the least developed countries;

Stresses the important role played by official development assistance in complementing domestic efforts to meet the development needs of developing countries, in particular the least developed countries, and in this regard acknowledges the official development assistance made available to developing countries and the efforts that developing countries have made to eradicate poverty;

Calls for the full, speedy and effective implementation of the enhanced Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative, and in this regard stresses the need for the donor community to provide the additional resources necessary to fulfil the future financial requirements of the Initiative, welcomes the agreement that financing for heavily indebted poor countries should be reviewed analytically and separately from International Development Association replenishment requirements but immediately after meetings for the thirteenth replenishment of the Association, and calls upon all donors to participate fully in this process;

Calls upon the heavily indebted poor countries to take, as soon as possible, the policy measures necessary to become eligible for the enhanced Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative and to reach the decision point;

Welcomes the recognition by the Joint Ministerial Committee of the Boards of Governors of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund on the Transfer of Real Resources to Developing Countries of the need to take into account worsening global growth prospects and declines in terms of trade, when updating Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative debt sustainability analysis at completion point;¹⁰

¹⁰See para. 8 of the communiqué of the Joint Ministerial Committee at its 64th meeting, held at Ottawa on 18 November 2001.

Recognizes the difficulties faced by heavily indebted middle-income developing countries in meeting their external debt and debt-servicing obligations, and notes the worsening situation in some of them in the context, inter alia, of greater liquidity constraints, which may require debt treatment through various national and international measures designed to assist those countries in making their debt burden sustainable in the long term and in combating poverty effectively;

Calls upon the developed countries, by means of intensified and effective cooperation with developing countries, to promote capacity-building and facilitate access to and transfer of technologies and corresponding knowledge, in particular to developing countries, on favourable terms, including concessional and preferential terms, as mutually agreed, taking into account the need to protect intellectual property rights, as well as the special needs of developing countries, by identifying and implementing practical steps to ensure the achievement of progress in this regard and to assist developing countries in their efforts to eradicate poverty in an era influenced in large measure by technology;

Stresses that the goal of halving extreme poverty by 2015 will not be achieved without serious efforts to address the development needs of the least developed countries and to support their efforts in improving the lives of their people, and in this regard welcomes the adoption of the Brussels Declaration¹¹ and the Programme of Action for the Least Developed Countries for the Decade 2001–2010,¹² at the Third United Nations Conference on the Least Developed Countries, held at Brussels from 14 to 20 May 2001, and calls upon the national Governments of the least developed countries and their development partners to implement fully the commitments undertaken in Brussels;

¹¹A/CONF.191/12.

¹²A/CONF.191/11.

Emphasizes the role of microcredit as an important anti-poverty tool that promotes production and self-employment and empowers people living in poverty, especially women, and therefore encourages Governments to adopt policies that support microcredit schemes and the development of microfinance institutions and their capacities, and calls upon the international community, in particular the relevant organs, organizations and bodies of the United Nations system and international and regional financial institutions involved in the eradication of poverty, to support and explore the incorporation of the microcredit approach into their programmes and the further development, as appropriate, of other microfinance instruments;

Welcomes the New Partnership for Africa’s Development launched at Abuja in October 2001, whose objectives are, inter alia, to promote sustained economic growth and development, including human development, so as to eradicate poverty in Africa on the basis of African leadership and enhanced partnership with the international community, and calls upon the developed countries and the United Nations system to support this partnership and complement the efforts undertaken by Africa to overcome the challenges it faces;

Emphasizes the critical role of both formal and non-formal education, particularly basic education, and training, in particular for girls, in the empowerment of those living in poverty, and in this context welcomes the Dakar Framework for Action adopted at the World Education Forum,¹³ as well as the strategy for poverty eradication of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization,¹⁴ and invites the organs and bodies of the United Nations system, in particular the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization and the United Nations Children’s Fund, to continue to promote the inclusion of education in anti-poverty strategies;

¹³See United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, Final Report of the World Education Forum, Dakar, Senegal, 26–28 April 2000 (Paris, 2000).

¹⁴Adopted at the thirty-first session of the General Conference of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization on 2 November 2001.

Recalls the commitments of the United Nations conferences and summits to eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education by 2005 and to promote universal primary education in all countries by 2015, and in this regard urges Member States to take immediate measures to remove obstacles to young girls’ school attendance and to reduce drop-out rates;

Reaffirms the role of United Nations funds and programmes, in particular the United Nations Development Programme, in assisting the national efforts of developing countries, inter alia, in the eradication of poverty, and the need for their funding in accordance with relevant United Nations resolutions;

Also reaffirms the importance of agreeing on a mutual commitment of interested developed and developing country partners to allocate, on average, 20 per cent of official development assistance and 20 per cent of the national budget, respectively, to basic social programmes, and welcomes the efforts made to implement the 20/20 initiative, which emphasizes that promoting access for all to basic social services is essential for sustainable and equitable development and is an integral part of the strategy for the eradication of poverty;

Recognizes the devastating effect of the human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) epidemic on human development, economic growth and poverty reduction efforts in many countries, in particular sub-Saharan African countries, and urges Governments and the international community to give urgent priority to the HIV/AIDS crisis, in particular addressing the special needs of developing countries through strengthened cooperation and assistance as well as through the implementation of commitments undertaken, as agreed in the Declaration of Commitment on HIV/AIDS, adopted by the General Assembly at its twenty-sixth special session in June 2001;¹⁵

¹⁵See resolution S-26/2, annex.

Calls upon Member States and the international community to support and participate in the global efforts for poverty eradication at the global, regional and country levels in order to ensure that the development and poverty reduction goals, as set out in the United Nations Millennium Declaration, are realized, and also calls upon the international community to support those efforts and to strengthen the resources available to the United Nations in order to enhance its capacity to support and coordinate all relevant initiatives in this regard and play its role of facilitator and advocate;

Encourages the continuing examination in all relevant intergovernmental forums of ways and means to integrate poverty reduction objectives and strategies into discussions on international financial and development issues;

Welcomes favourably the proposal to establish a world solidarity fund for poverty eradication and the promotion of human and social development in developing countries, in particular among the poorest segments of their population;

Requests the Secretary-General, with a view to establishing the fund, to submit to the General Assembly at its fifty-seventh session a report containing his recommendations on mechanisms, modalities, terms of reference, mandates and governance for the operationalization of the fund, bearing in mind the voluntary nature of contributions from Member States, international organizations, the private sector, relevant institutions, foundations and individuals and the need to avoid duplication of existing United Nations funds;

Also requests the Secretary-General, in the context of the follow-up to the United Nations Millennium Declaration, to submit to the General Assembly at its fifty-seventh session a comprehensive report containing an evaluation of progress made towards achieving the goals of the Decade, including best practices, lessons learned and obstacles, as well as in the achievement of the 2015 targets for poverty reduction, and recommendations for further action to achieve the 2015 targets, including the identification of resource requirements and possible sources of funding;

Decides to include in the provisional agenda of its fifty-seventh session the item entitled “Implementation of the first United Nations Decade for the Eradication of Poverty (1997–2006)”.

Implementation of the 1st United Nations Decade for the Eradication of Poverty (1997-2006), Including the Proposal to Establish a World Solidarity Fund for Poverty Eradication

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