According to UN or United Nations “Poverty entails more than the lack of income and productive

resources to ensure sustainable livelihoods. Its manifestations include hunger and malnutrition, limited
access to education and other basic services, social discrimination and exclusion, as well as the lack of
participation in decision-making.” Poverty is a nationwide issue: many countries have tried and
attempted to provide a solution to solve poverty, but unfortunately no country have completely found a
solution to solve the said issue. There are roughly 736 million people who lived below the international
poverty line of US$ 1.90 a day in 2015. In 2018, almost 8 percent of the worlds workers and their
families lived on less than US$ 1.90 per person per day and 55 percent of the world’s population haver
no access to at least one social protection cash benefit. Most people living below the poverty line belong
to two regions: Southern Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. It is shown that high poverty rates are often
found in small, fragile and conflict -affected countries.

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development promises to leave no one behind and to reach those
furthest behind first. The progress in eradicating extreme poverty has been incremental and
widespread, the persistence of poverty, including extreme poverty remains a major concern in Africa,
the least developed countries, small island developing States, in some middle-income countries, and
countries in situations of conflict and post-conflict countries. In light of these concerns, the General
Assembly, at its seventy-second session, decided to proclaim the “Third United Nations Decade for the
Eradication of Poverty (2018–2027).”The objective of the Third Decade is to maintain the momentum
generated by the implementation of the Second United Nations Decade for the Eradication of Poverty
(2008-2017) towards poverty eradication. In 1995, the World Summit for Social Development held in
Copenhagen, identified three core issues: poverty eradication, employment generation and social
integration, in contributing to the creation of an international community that enables the building of
secure, just, free and harmonious societies offering opportunities and higher standards of living for all.

Within the United Nations system, the Division for Social Policy and Development (DSPD) of the
Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) acts as Focal Point for the United Nations Decade for
the Eradication of Poverty and undertakes activities that assist and facilitate governments in more
effective implementation of the commitments and policies adopted in the Copenhagen Declaration on
Social Development and the further initiatives on Social Development adopted at the 24th Special
session of the General Assembly.

Through resolution 47/196 adopted on 22 December 1992, the General Assembly declared 17 October
as the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty.

The observance of the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty can be traced back to 17 October
1987. On that day, over a hundred thousand people gathered at the Trocadéro in Paris, where the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights was signed in 1948, to honour the victims of extreme poverty,
violence and hunger. They proclaimed that poverty is a violation of human rights and affirmed the need
to come together to ensure that these rights are respected. These convictions are inscribed on a
commemorative stone unveiled that day. Since then, people of all backgrounds, beliefs and social origins
have gathered every year on October 17th to renew their commitment and show their solidarity with
the poor.