ECOSOC Outlines Strategic Priorities for Poverty Eradication
����The United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) outlined strategic priorities for poverty eradication in a president statement Friday at the end of its 1999 session.
����With poverty eradication as the major focus of the ECOSOC session from July 5 to 30, the statement said, the participants from the ECOSOC's 54 members acknowledge that the major challenge facing the world in the new millennium is the eradication of poverty.
����The statement called on governments, international organizations, civil society and the business world to join hands with the United Nations in an all-out campaign to fight the scourge of poverty in the world.
����"In order to succeed, we must empower the people living in poverty and ensure that they participate fully in this fight," the statement said.
����The ECOSOC said that about 40 billion US dollars a year are needed to achieve the international goals related to poverty eradication.
����As a first step, the UN agency vowed to reduce by half the proportion of people living in extreme poverty (with less than a dollar of income a day) by 2015. It is estimated that 1.3 billion people still live in abject poverty worldwide. (Xinhua)
WorldNews 1999-08-02 Page7
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