Bola Olajuwon, Assistant Editor
…Nigerian appointed coordinator
UNITED Nations General Assembly President Tijjani Muhammad-Bande has described poverty as the most formidable obstacle to the attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals and a blot on humanity’s conscience.
He said poverty appears in different forms, notably, as a lack of access to decent jobs, education, food, shelter, healthcare, potable water, sanitation, and deficiencies in many things that make life worth living.
“It has been identified as a major factor in expectant mothers’ stress and as the leading cause of pre- and post-natal complications. Conflict and civil strife will not last long if either’s underlying trigger, poverty, is eliminated.
“Poverty joins conflict as a leading cause of migration,” Muhammad-Bande said as the United Nations (UN) launched a poverty eradication group to confront the enduring, complex and multi-sided challenge posed by the scourge to humanity around the world.
Currently comprising of over 30 founding member states with the membership still growing, ‘Alliance for Poverty Eradication’ is the ‘signature event’ of the UN General Assembly President and is being chaired by Nigeria as its Interim Coordinator.
At the formal inauguration of the group at a High-Level Meeting on ‘Poverty Eradication Strategies’ in New York, Muhammad-Bande said alongside quality education and inclusion, the eradication of poverty is among the key priorities of the President of the 74th session of the General Assembly and the number one of the 17 SDGs designed as a blueprint to achieve a better and more sustainable future for the whole world by 2030.
“Before the onset of the pandemic, 2.1 billion people were classified as poor globally, with 767 million living in extreme poverty. It is estimated that by the year 2030, more than 100 million people would have relapsed into poverty, due to COVID19 and climate change,” he said.
To alleviate the problem, the group, he said, could pull together all the factors and interests in poverty eradication and serve as a one-stop networking, information sharing and bridge-building centre.
“The Alliance should provide a mechanism for interrogating the poverty challenge from all possible, or at least, multi-disciplinary, angles. There is no amount of time and attention given to poverty eradication that is too much,” Muhammad-Bande said.
The Charge d’affaires ad interim of the Permanent Mission of Nigeria to the United Nations, Amb. Samson Itegboje, who is the interim coordinator, in his remarks, said Muhammad-Bande had demonstrated his commitment to leave no one behind by launching the initiative at the outset of the decade of action and delivery for sustainable development.
Itegboje said: “Evidence indicates that poverty is the foundation of most social vices and crimes, such as terrorism, illegal migration, conflicts, violent extremism, intolerance, fraudulent practices, exclusion, piracy, human trafficking, drug trafficking and abuse and corrupt practices both in high and low places”.
In a video message to the launch, President Muhammadu Buhari welcomed the launch of the initiative and conveyed Nigeria’s endorsement of all multilateral actions aimed at eradicating poverty.
“In these difficult times, it takes considerable boldness and courage to consider that which is in the interest of the greater good. The anchor members have done just that,” Buhari said.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres said stronger multilateral system was needed to help countries fight poverty and recover from the socio-economic impact of COVID-19.
Guterres urged the alliance to “extend sound policy advice, ensure policy coherence and set international parameters for an employment-led and people-centred recovery”.
The launch marked the first ‘High-Level Meeting on Trends, Options and Strategies in Poverty Eradication in a series of annual ministerial level policy dialogues or colloquia on poverty eradication.
The event was also addressed by the UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed and the leadership of the International Labour Organisation, the Food and Agriculture Organisation, the World Bank Group, UNDP, UNCTAD, Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights, among others.
