Implementation of the 1st United Nations Decade for the Eradication of Poverty

A/RES/54/232No PDF available

Who created this mandate?

A Resolution of the General Assembly, under agenda item 105Implementation of the 1st United Nations Decade for the Eradication of Poverty (1997-2006), published in 2000.

What other versions does this mandate have?

2 versions · 1999–2000

2000A/RES/54/232Implementation of the 1st United Nations Decade for the Eradication of PovertyLatestCompare with previous version
1999A/RES/53/198Implementation of the 1st United Nations Decade for the Eradication of Poverty

Versions are identified automatically by matching titles within the same organ (~97% accuracy on a manual audit).

What subjects does this mandate have?

13 topics

Development Assistance Economic Growth Economic Policy Education External Debt Gender Mainstreaming Globalization International Decades International Economic Relations Microcredit Poverty Mitigation Social Policy Technology Transfer

What does this mandate say?

22 operative paragraphs

Reiterates that the main objective of the first United Nations Decade for the Eradication of Poverty is to achieve the goal of eradicating absolute poverty and reducing overall poverty substantially in the world through decisive national action and international cooperation;

Reiterates also the call for strengthened efforts at all levels to implement fully and effectively the relevant resolutions and decisions of the United Nations and all agreements and commitments adopted at major United Nations conferences and summits organized since 1990 as they relate to the eradication of poverty, and, in this context, calls for specific action aimed at achieving tangible results through an output-oriented approach to attaining the objectives of the Decade as soon as possible;

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 by 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, to the promotion and protection of all human rights and fundamental freedoms for all, including the right to development, and to an efficient, transparent and accountable public service and administration;

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;

Recognizes the importance of adopting 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, in order to realize the objective of eradicating poverty;

Calls upon all Governments to incorporate, as they deem appropriate, the recommendations made by the Secretary-General for possible action and initiatives for poverty eradication towards the new millennium in the design and implementation of their national poverty alleviation strategies and to explore policies best suited to their national circumstances with a view to maximizing efforts aimed at poverty reduction and eradication;

Reaffirms that the causes of poverty should be addressed in the context of sectoral strategies, such as those on environment, food security, population, migration, health, shelter, the development of human resources, including education, fresh water, rural development and productive employment, and of the specific needs of disadvantaged and vulnerable groups in such a way as to increase opportunities and choices for people living in poverty and to enable them to build and to strengthen their assets so as to achieve social and economic integration;

Urges the strengthening of international assistance to developing countries in their efforts to alleviate poverty, including 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;

Calls upon all countries to formulate and to implement outcome-oriented national strategies and programmes, including setting time-bound targets for poverty reduction, and, in this context, notes the efforts being made to achieve the target of reducing by one half, by 2015, the proportion of people living in extreme poverty, which requires strengthened national action and international assistance;

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 international levels, 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;

Calls upon the developed countries to strengthen their efforts to achieve, as soon as possible, the agreed target of 0.7 per cent of their gross national product for overall official development assistance 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;

Emphasizes the importance of increasing the control of the poor over resources, including land, skills, knowledge, capital and social connections;

Emphasizes also the role of microcredit as an important anti-poverty tool that promotes the generation of productive self-employment and empowers people living in poverty, especially women, and therefore encourages Governments to adopt policies that support the development and capacity of microcredit institutions, 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 to explore the incorporation of the microcredit approach into their programmes and the further development, as appropriate, of other microfinancing instruments;

Calls upon the developed countries, by means of intensified and effective cooperation with developing countries, to promote capacity-building and to 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;

Emphasizes the critical role of both formal and non-formal education and training and basic education in the empowerment of those living in poverty, notes the importance of the world forum on education to be held at Dakar in April 2000, and invites the United Nations system, in particular the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization and the United Nations Children’s Fund, to propose measures aimed at enhancing the role of the United Nations system, including the World Bank, in helping Member States to provide effective and equitable education for all;

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 those agencies of the United Nations system, including the Bretton Woods institutions, and other partners in development to continue to support all Member States in carrying forward their own strategy for the achievement of the objectives of the Decade;

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;

Welcomes the Cologne debt initiative, launched in June 1999, which called for substantial additional financing, and recognizes the importance of fair burden-sharing among creditors and the recent decisions of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank on the enhanced Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Debt Initiative, which should provide deeper, broader and faster debt relief that will contribute to the reduction of poverty in a sustainable manner in those countries;

Recognizes the difficulties of highly indebted middle-income developing countries and other highly indebted middle-income 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 higher liquidity constraints, which may require debt treatment including, as appropriate, debt-reduction measures that will assist them in their efforts effectively to combat poverty;

Encourages the continued 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;

Requests the Secretary-General to report to it at its fifty-fifth session on the progress made in the implementation of measures, recommendations and activities relating to the first United Nations Decade for the Eradication of Poverty, including a thorough examination of the impact of globalization on the eradication of poverty, recommendations for possible action and initiatives for the eradication of poverty and proposals for better coordination of action taken by the United Nations system, as well as on the implementation of the present resolution;

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

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