By Donald Lee, President ATD Fourth World International

Dear Friends,
Last month, the United Nations convened its Summit of the Future to urgently address the rising poverty, hunger, inequality, and threats to human rights. The Summit, which brought together world leaders, aimed to build a new international consensus to accelerate efforts to ensure a better world for all in the present and to safeguard the future.

Progress towards achieving most of the Sustainable Development Goals has been either too slow or regressing. Poverty reduction efforts are faltering in many countries around the world.

I believe the disappointing progress towards eradicating poverty at the global level reflects the growing disconnect between decision-making at the multilateral level and decisive action at the national level. At the United Nations, member states are not held accountable for failing to meet their obligations, including the Sustainable Development Goals. The failure of governments to fulfill their obligations to eradicate poverty can be interpreted as systemic social and institutional maltreatment towards people living in poverty.

If in framing policy, public and private institutions reflect, amplify, and shape discriminatory attitudes rather than challenge them, then these biases will be reflected in the design and implementation of poverty eradication policies.

This situation becomes the norm when people experiencing poverty have little or no voice in decisions made by authorities or persons in positions of authority. One person with lived experience of poverty insightfully observed that:

“When you live in extreme poverty, you are caught up in a complex system of power relationships and domination.”

Person with lived experience of poverty

We must come together to ensure that governments honor the commitments they have made to end poverty at the national level.

• We must strengthen our resolve to answer the Call to Action by Joseph Wresinski on October 17, 1987.

In the spirit of October 17, we must make every effort to broaden and deepen the existing coalitions between activists and people from all walks of life to defend the dignity and human rights of people living in poverty everywhere.

We must reach out to an ever-widening circle of friends and allies in our communities and workplaces, in universities and public and private institutions to spread awareness of the urgent need to end poverty in all its forms.

We must come together in solidarity of purpose to defend the human rights of people, ensuring they can live peacefully in a world without poverty.