Economic Security
Poverty eradication is one of the three overarching objectives of sustainable development, affirmed at the World Summit on Sustainable Development. It is also one of the most controversial areas of policy, involving competing views regarding the cause and response to poverty. Despite decades of development aid and thousands of programs and initiatives, poverty continues to deepen as the gap between rich and poor widens. As one of the wealthiest countries on the planet, not to mention one of the biggest consumers of the world's natural resources, the United States and its citizens bear a special responsibility and opportunity to address the problem of global poverty, as well as the poverty and inequality existing within this country. Many CitNet members are actively engaged in the struggle for economic security and social justice, as we will note in these pages.
UN Commission on Social Development
New York. Members of SustainUS
represented CitNet at the UN
Commission on Social Development (Feb
8-
17),
which included a review of progress in reducing poverty. This year was
the last of the UN Decade for the Eradication of Poverty (1997-2006),
whereby many NGOs concluded the effort was "inadequate." Why?
"Poverty is still possible to eradicate," says Roberto
Bissio, yet "the rich countries are not meeting their part of
commitments," claiming "the cost is too high" and not realizing
the much higher costs of not meeting those commitments. In Sub-Saharan
Africa 100 million more people live on less than one dollar a day than
in 1990, and despite a decade of anti-poverty mesaures, more than 40 percent
of the world's population is still faced with the daily reality or impending
threat of poverty.
