Human Development Report 1997

Eradicating poverty everywhere is more than a moral imperative - it is a practical possibility. That is the most important message of the Human Development Report 1997. The world has the resources and the know-how to create a poverty-free world in less than a generation.

The Report focuses not just on poverty of incomes but on poverty from a human development perspective - poverty as a denial of choices and opportunities for living a tolerable life. The strategies proposed in the Report go beyond income redistribution - encompassing action in the critical areas of gender equality, pro-poor growth, globalization and the democratic governance of development.

Eradicating poverty entails:

• Removing barriers that deny choices and opportunities for living a tolerable life;
• Safeguarding people from the new global pressures that create or threaten further increases in poverty;
• Building assets for the poor;
• Empowering men and women to ensure their participation in decisions that affect their lives;
• Investing in human development - health and education; and
• Affirming that the eradication of absolute poverty in the first decades of the 21st century is feasible, affordable and a moral imperative.