Fighting poverty

Since it was officially recognized by the United Nations in 1993, International Day for the Eradication of Poverty has been observed every year on Oct 17.

It is intended to promote awareness of the need to eradicate the poverty caused by sanctions, war, disasters, discrimination and wealth centralization, particularly in developing countries.

At the UN Millennium Summit, world leaders adopted the Millennium Declaration, comprising eight goals, of which the eradication of extreme poverty and hunger was the first priority. They committed themselves to halving the proportion of the world's people whose income is less than $1 a day by the year 2015.