"The World Solidarity Fund
to eradicate poverty in the world"
Aware of the state of extreme destitution in which an increasing portion of the world's population is living, despite efforts to reduce poverty, President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali has, on 25 August 1999, called on the international community to set up a "World solidarity Fund" aimed at fighting against poverty and securing "the development of most destitute regions in various parts of the planet, and most particularly in the poorest countries.
"... It is really distressing to note at this stage in world history as humanity prepares to enter a new millennium after having achieved in less than one century, more progress than during the preceding millenniums, that the gulf is incessantly widening between peoples amid continued aggravation of misery and destitution in many regions of the world thus creating shady areas over entire sections of humankind.
This, in our view, is one of the greatest challenges facing world conscience today. Indeed, the persistence of these excessive imbalances constitutes a moral contradiction with the progress achieved elsewhere and a flagrant conflict with the noble ideals we all are seeking to establish all over the world.
We wish to take this opportunity to launch an appeal to all the world leaders as well as to the various U.N. and other international institutions to establish a "World Solidarity Fund" whose mission it would be to collect donations and voluntary contributions and use them in the struggle against poverty and for the development of the most deprived regions in various parts of the world, particularly the most disadvantaged countries and the countries in the grip of various scourges and crises.."
The assessment made by international bodies concerning the aggravation of disparities and poverty worldwide is eloquent: indeed, the difference between the richest and the poorest countries has doubled in forty years; the average income of the twenty richest nations is currently 37 times the income of the 20 most destitute nations.According to the President of the World Bank (1999):
- 100 million more poor people live in developing countries, not including China, than ten years before.
- One hundred and twenty five million children do not attend school.
- Out of the 6 billion people living on our planet, 3 billion live on less than two dollars a day. By the end of the next fifteen years, these will be 4 billion out of 8.
The 1999 World Report on Human Development, for its part, highlights that 1.3 billion individuals do not have access to drinkable water, and nearly 840 million suffer from malnutrition.
Despite the fact that the international community is starting to mobilize and despite the numerous steps taken during the past few years to relieve the situation in the poorest countries, notably through the debt alleviation program, progress in the area of poverty eradication is still very slow. This will need to be accelerated but, in addition, new instruments need to be developed so as to accelerate the pace of social and human development in the world's poorest regions.
Since President Ben Ali's call for the establishment of a World solidarity Fund, more than fifteen international bodies and regional as well as international conferences have upheld this initiative, including most particularly:
- The First Euro-African Summit, Cairo, 3-4 April 2000;
- The G-77 Summit, Havana, 12-14 April 2000;
- The First Ministerial Conference on Security, Stability, Development, and Cooperation in Africa, Abuja, 8-9 May 2000;
- The 27th meeting of OIC Foreign Ministers, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 30 June 2000);
- the 24th Extraordinary Session of the United Nations General Assembly devoted to the follow-up of decisions taken by the Copenhagen World Summit on Social Development (Geneva, 26 June - 1st July 2000).
- and, the latest, the United Nations General Assembly, in a resolution adopted during its fifty-fifth session, on 20 December 2000, within the framework of "the implementation of the First United Nations Decade for the Eradication of Poverty (1997-2006), including the initiative aimed at establishing a World Solidarity Fund for Poverty Eradication", declared that it favorably welcomed the proposal to establish a world solidarity fund for the eradication of poverty, as a contribution to the elimination of poverty and the promotion of social and human development in the world's poorest regions, and requests the Secretary General to undertake the necessary consultations with member states and other parties concerned by this issue while taking into consideration the voluntary nature of contributions and to report to the fifty-sixth session of the General Assembly".
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