[UN] Experts say decade-long fight against poverty has fallen short

from Canada com

Robin Hindery, Canadian Press

UNITED NATIONS (AP) - A decade-long fight against poverty has ended with more of a whimper than a roar as officials and advocates say efforts to eliminate global poverty have fallen far short of the goals with over one billion people still living on less than $1 US a day.

The conclusion came as members of the world body and outside anti-poverty groups kicked off a 10-day review Wednesday of the first UN Decade to Eradicate Poverty from 1997 to 2006.

Looking back over the past decade, "we are forced to conclude that the picture is mixed," said Clare Short, a British parliamentarian and former international aid chief who was the keynote speaker at the opening of the review.

Significant poverty reduction has occurred in parts of East and South Asia and the Pacific regions, Short and others noted, but Sub-Saharan Africa and parts of Latin America still suffer from the scourge of extreme poverty.

Countries in all regions continue to face "an array of growing inequalities in terms of wealth and income, based on gender and ethnic background, and between urban and rural areas," said Jose Antonio Ocampo, the UN's undersecretary general for economic and social affairs.

In addition, global advances in quality-of-life indicators such as infant mortality, access to education and the presence of a skilled attendant during childbirth have slowed down, said Roberto Bissio, a representative of Social Watch, an international watchdog network that monitors poverty eradication and gender equality.

"The speed of progress in these social areas has been decelerating," he said. "This is inverse to the amount of declarations and expressions of good will on these issues."

The most high-profile pledge was the UN Millennium Declaration in 2000, in which all UN member states set targets for 2015 that included halving extreme poverty, ensuring that all children have an elementary school education, and halting and reversing the AIDS pandemic.

By many accounts, the poverty reduction goal has been thrown off track, and Short pointed to the March 2003 invasion of Iraq as one of the contributing factors.

The global strains caused by that controversial U.S. and British-led action, which toppled President Saddam Hussein, "have weakened the UN and created a sense of bitter division in the world," she said.

Throughout the day Wednesday, speakers universally emphasized the importance of concrete action over pledges of action if poverty eradication is to be achieved. They also called for the world's poor to have a strong role and voice in future efforts.

"The poor and the marginalized should not only be subjects but also central actors in the design of inclusive public policies," Ocampo said.