Abstract

PIP: The UN Social Summit was held on the heels of the 1994 UN International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) with the goal of emphasizing the currently interconnected nature of human existence. The issue was not so much poverty as it was the global consequences of poverty. Poverty is a global problem with potentially widespread ramifications. Despite the urgent need to address and reduce the extent and level of poverty worldwide, however, developed countries at the summit mounted thinly veiled resistance to commit themselves financially and politically to eradicating poverty. Attempts to persuade Western nations to write off the debts of the developing world were stiffly resisted, while the proposed 0.5% Tobin Tax on international currency transactions to fight poverty received no support. The conference was nonetheless a logical continuation of the Cairo ICPD, a validation of the holistic approach taken by the UN, and well worth the US$30 million spent, largely by the Danish government, to make it a reality. The author notes that garnering rights for women is part of alleviating poverty, and that the issue of global poverty is now firmly on the international agenda.