Implementation of the 1st United Nations Decade for the Eradication of Poverty (1997-2006)

A/RES/57/266No PDF available

Who created this mandate?

A Resolution of the General Assembly, under agenda item 89Implementation of the 1st United Nations Decade for the Eradication of Poverty (1997-2006), published in 2003.

What other versions does this mandate have?

14 versions · 2003–2025

This is an older version — the most recent is A/RES/80/153

2025A/RES/80/153Implementation of the 3rd United Nations Decade for the Eradication of Poverty (2018-2027)LatestCompare with previous version
2024A/RES/79/221Implementation of the 3rd United Nations Decade for the Eradication of Poverty (2018-2027)Compare with previous version
2023A/RES/78/164Implementation of the 3rd United Nations Decade for the Eradication of Poverty (2018-2027)Compare with previous version
2022A/RES/77/179Implementation of the 3rd United Nations Decade for the Eradication of Poverty (2018-2027)Compare with previous version
2022A/RES/76/218Implementation of the 3rd United Nations Decade for the Eradication of Poverty (2018-2027)Compare with previous version

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What does this mandate say?

31 operative paragraphs

Stresses that eradicating poverty is the greatest global challenge facing the world today and an indispensable requirement for sustainable development, in particular for developing countries, and that, although each country has the primary responsibility for its own sustainable development and poverty eradication and that the role of national policies and development strategies cannot be overemphasized, concerted and concrete measures are required at all levels to enable developing countries to achieve their sustainable development goals as related to the internationally agreed poverty-related targets and goals;

Also stresses that the deep fault line that divides human society between the rich and the poor and the ever-increasing gap between the developed and developing worlds pose a major threat to global prosperity, security and stability;

Reaffirms that good governance at the international level is fundamental for achieving poverty eradication and sustainable development; that, in order to ensure a dynamic and enabling international economic environment, it is important to promote global economic governance through addressing the international finance, trade, technology and investment patterns that have an impact on the development prospects of developing countries; that, to that end, the international community should take all necessary and appropriate measures, including ensuring support to structural and macroeconomic reform, a comprehensive solution to the external debt problem and increasing market access for developing countries; that efforts to reform the international financial architecture need to be sustained with greater transparency and the effective participation of developing countries in decision-making processes; and that a universal, rule-based, open, non-discriminatory and equitable multilateral trading system, as well as meaningful trade liberalization, can substantially stimulate development worldwide, benefiting countries at all stages of development;

Also reaffirms that good governance at the national level is essential for poverty eradication and sustainable development; that sound economic policies, solid democratic institutions responsive to the needs of the people and improved infrastructure are the basis for sustained economic growth, poverty eradication and employment creation; and that freedom, peace and security, domestic stability, respect for human rights, including the right to development, and the rule of law, gender equality, market-oriented policies and an overall commitment to just and democratic societies are also essential and mutually reinforcing;

Stresses that the first 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 as part of an integrated approach to achieving the internationally agreed development goals, including those contained in the Millennium Declaration;Error: Reference source not found

Reaffirms that the eradication of poverty should be addressed in an integrated way, as set out in the Plan of Implementation of the World Summit on Sustainable Development (“Johannesburg Plan of Implementation”), 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, local and community development, productive employment, population, environment, water and sanitation, food security, energy and migration, and 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 development, security and stability, and in that regard encourages countries to develop their national poverty reduction policies in accordance with their national priorities, including, where appropriate, through poverty reduction strategy papers;

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 major role that trade can play as an engine of growth and development and in eradicating poverty, and in that context stresses 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;

Welcomes the decision contained in the Ministerial Declaration, adopted at the Fourth Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization,4 to place the needs and interests of developing countries at the heart of the work programme adopted at the Conference, including through enhanced market access for products of interest to developing countries;

Recognizes that a substantial increase in official development assistance and other resources will be required if developing countries, in particular the least developed countries, are to achieve the internationally agreed development goals and objectives, including those contained in the Millennium Declaration, and that, to build support for official development assistance, cooperation is necessary to further improve policies and development strategies to enhance aid effectiveness, both nationally and internationally, and in that regard requests those countries that made announcements of increased official development assistance at the International Conference on Financing for Development to make those resources available as soon as possible;

Urges developed countries that have not done so to make concrete efforts to reach the targets of 0.7 per cent of their gross national product as official development assistance to developing countries and 0.15 to 0.20 per cent of their gross national product to least developed countries, as reconfirmed at the Third United Nations Conference on the Least Developed Countries, held at Brussels from 14 to 20 May 2001, encourages developing countries to build on progress achieved in ensuring that official development assistance is used effectively to help achieve development goals and targets, acknowledges the efforts of all donors, commends those donors whose official development assistance contributions exceed, reach or are increasing towards the targets, and underlines the importance of undertaking to examine the means and time frames for achieving the targets and goals;

Recognizes that an enabling domestic environment is vital for mobilizing domestic resources, increasing productivity, reducing capital flight, encouraging the private sector, and attracting and making effective use of international investment and assistance, and that efforts to create such an environment should be supported by the international community;

Notes with great concern the continuing debt and debt-servicing problems of the heavily indebted poor developing countries as constituting an element that adversely affects their sustainable development efforts, noting in that regard that the total debt stock of the developing countries rose from $1,458 billion in 1990 to $2,442 billion in 2001, recognizes that creditors and debtors must share the responsibility for preventing and resolving unsustainable debt situations and that debt relief can play a key role in liberating resources that should be directed towards activities consistent with attaining sustainable growth and development, including poverty reduction and the achievement of the development goals contained in the Millennium Declaration, and in that regard urges countries to direct those resources freed through debt relief, in particular through debt cancellation and reduction, towards those objectives;

Calls for the full, speedy and effective implementation of the enhanced Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative, which should be fully financed through additional resources, encourages the participation in the Initiative of all creditors that have not yet participated, and stresses in that regard the need for the donor community to provide the additional resources necessary to fulfil the future financial requirements of the Initiative, welcomes, therefore, the agreement that financing for heavily indebted poor countries should be reviewed analytically and separately from International Development Association replenishment requirements, but back-to-back with meetings for the fourteenth replenishment of the Association, and calls upon all donors to participate fully in that process;

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 that regard and to assist developing countries in their efforts to eradicate poverty in an era influenced in large measure by technology;

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

Also recognizes the importance of disseminating best practices for the reduction of poverty in its various dimensions, taking into account the need to adapt those best practices to suit the social, economic, cultural and historical conditions of each country;

Expresses its concern that, despite a decrease in the number of undernourished people in some developing countries during the 1990s, nearly two thirds of those countries recorded either no change or an increase in the number of undernourished people, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, and that, at current rates of progress, the target to halve the proportion of people who suffer from hunger by 2015 is likely to be achieved in some regions but not in others, including sub-Saharan Africa, unless substantially strengthened efforts are made at all levels in order to achieve food security;

Emphasizes the link between poverty eradication and improving access to safe drinking water, and stresses in that regard the objective to halve, by 2015, the proportion of people who are unable to reach or to afford safe drinking water and the proportion of people who do not have access to basic sanitation, as reaffirmed in the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation;9

Recognizes that the lack of adequate housing remains a pressing challenge in the fight to eradicate extreme poverty, particularly in the urban areas in developing countries, expresses its concern at the rapid growth in the number of slum dwellers in the urban areas of developing countries, particularly in Africa, stresses that unless urgent and effective measures and actions are taken at the national and international levels, the number of slum dwellers, who constitute one third of the world’s urban population, will continue to increase, and emphasizes the need for increased efforts, with a view to significantly improving the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers by 2020;

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;

Emphasizes the critical role of both formal and non-formal education, in particular basic education and training, especially for girls, in the empowerment of those living in poverty, reaffirms in that context the Dakar Framework for Action adopted at the World Education Forum, and recognizes the importance of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization strategy for poverty eradication, especially extreme poverty, in supporting the Education For All programmes as a tool to achieve, inter alia, universal primary education by 2015;

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 by addressing, in particular, 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;

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;

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;

Stresses, as recognized in the Millennium Declaration, the importance of meeting the special needs of Africa, where poverty remains a major challenge and where most countries have not benefited fully from the opportunities of globalization, which has further exacerbated the continent’s marginalization;

Welcomes the New Partnership for Africa’s Development as a programme of the African Union, the primary objective of which is to eradicate poverty and promote sustainable development on the basis of African ownership and leadership and enhanced partnership with the international community, and urges the developed countries and the United Nations system to support the Partnership and complement the efforts undertaken by Africa to overcome the challenges it faces;

Stresses that the goal of halving the proportion of people living on less than one dollar a day by 2015 will not be achieved without serious efforts to address the development needs of the least developed countries and to support their efforts to improve the lives of their people, and in that regard calls upon the national Governments of the least developed countries and their development partners to implement fully the commitments contained in the Brussels Declaration and the Programme of Action for the Least Developed Countries for the Decade 2001–2010,10 adopted at the Third United Nations Conference on the Least Developed Countries;

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 the relevant resolutions of the United Nations;

Requests the Secretary-General to submit a report to the General Assembly at its fifty-eighth session on the implementation of the present resolution;

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

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Implementation of the 1st United Nations Decade for the Eradication of Poverty (1997-2006)

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