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eradication, emphasizing the importance of halving the number of people who
currently live on one dollar a day or less. Any effort to achieve sustainable
development demands a concerted effort to reduce poverty, including finding
solutions to hunger, malnutrition and disease. To achieve progress, the developing
countries will need the political and financial commitment of their richer country
partners. The international community should continue to operate on many fronts to
reach these goals:
• Since the scourge of HIV/AIDS and other diseases has a devastating impact on
every effort to lift people out of poverty, the Global AIDS and Health Fund is
thus both a campaign to improve health and part of an essential strategy to
achieve sustainable development;
• Given that all the issues around poverty are interconnected and demand cross-
cutting solutions, such measures as the “School meals” and “Take home
rations” programmes can have multiple benefits that extend beyond nutritional
assistance. Education provides the skills that can lift families out of extreme
poverty and preserve community health. In particular, when society facilitates
girls’ empowerment through education, the eventual impact on their and their
families’ daily lives is unequalled;
• People-centred initiatives are crucial but must be supplemented with sound
national policies, such as responsible social spending programmes, as well as
improvements in governance, infrastructure and institution-building, such as
those included in establishing property rights for the poor;
• Wealthier nations must adhere to their promises regarding official development
assistance, trade access and debt sustainability, all of which are important items
on the agenda of the upcoming International Conference on Financing for
Development;
• For the 49 least developed countries, the next steps are implementing a global
version of the European “Everything but arms” trade programme; increasing
official development assistance; fully implementing the enhanced Heavily
Indebted Poor Countries Initiative and pursuing measures to promote the
cancellation of official bilateral debt;
• Landlocked and small island developing countries are subject to special
vulnerabilities that need to be addressed through support to the Global
Framework for Transit-Transport Cooperation between landlocked and transit
developing countries and the donor community and through the implementation
of the Programme of Action for the Sustainable Development of Small Island
Developing States;
• Lastly, the Information and Communications Technologies Task Force, which is
to meet in September 2001, will take steps to begin the bridging of the digital
divide.