Leave No One Behind: UN's Ban Ki Moon Aims To Make Poverty a History

Leave No One Behind: UN's Ban Ki Moon Aims To Make Poverty a History


UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon has indicated that he is determined to help the UN to make “poverty a history.” Around 1.2 billion people across the world are living on lower than USD 1,25 per day and 2.4 billion people are living on less than $2 per day, according to the UN Secretary General, when he spoke on the UN's International Day for the Eradication of Poverty. Around 700 million people have been lifted out of extreme poverty between the years 1990 and 2010 and the aim now is to increase that number. The Day was marked at the UN headquarters with 3 separate events and this included an official commemoration through a panel discussion entitled “Leave No One Behind: Women Poverty and Participation'. Alongside this, an art exhibition was organised to give voice to persons living in poverty through a collection of artworks.

The Secretary-General said “Where poverty holds sway, people are held back. Lives disfigured by poverty are cruel, mean and, often, short.”The damaging impact of poverty is a constant and Ban estimated the cost to be an aftereffect of the 2008 financial crisis causing an estimated 2.4 billion people to survive on less than $2 per day. He also noted that women and girls were mostly excluded from the chance of self development and fulfilment leading to their and their families isolation in pockets of poverty. “Since the beginning of the financial crisis, inequality has grown even more pronounced than it was already,” Ban said“Discrimination against women and girls remains a blatant injustice, robbing the entire development enterprise of one of the keys to progress.”

The International Day for the Eradication of Poverty has been observed every year since 1993. It was on this day that the UN General Assembly has allocated the day for promotion of awareness of the need to end poverty and destitution in countries ahead of the MDG deadline for 2015. The theme for this year for this day is “Leave no one behind: think, decide and act together against extreme poverty,” and it provides much needed attention to the issue of identifying and ensuring the participation and security of those in the grips of extreme poverty and social inclusion in the Post 2015 Development Agenda which will now replace the MDGs.

17th October is the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty and people need to be educated about the need to eradicate poverty. Poverty remains the biggest problem of this century and it has life threatening consequences. Inequality in distribution of income and lack of opportunities for the rural and urban poor are what is driving the entire vicious cycle to its perennial existence. If more opportunities were created, and the inclusive development was actively pursued, this social evil of the present century would then meet its demise.
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