The scale and nature of the problem live in dignity. This definition 4. The President of the World Bank recently wrote: “[Ploverty remains a global probl em of huge proportions. Of the world’s 6 billion people, 2.8 billion live on less than $2 a day, and 1.2 billion on less than $1 a day. Six infants of every 100 do not see their first birthday, and 8 do not survive to their fifth. Of those who do reach school age, 9 boys in 100, and 14 girls, do not go to primary school.”4* While statistics do not provide a complete understanding of poverty, these shocking figures signify massive and systemic breaches of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the two International Covenants, as well as of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, the Convention on the Rights of the Child and other international human rights instruments. 5. recognizes poverty’s broader features, such as hunger, poor education, discrimination, vulnerability and social exclusion.® The Committee notes that this understanding of poverty corresponds with numerous provisions of the Covenant. 8. Inthe light of the International Bill of Rights, poverty may be defined as a human condition characterized by sustained or chronic deprivation of the resources, capabilities, choices, security and power necessary for the enjoyment of an adequate standard of living an other civil, cultural, economic, political and social rights. While acknowledging that there is no universally accepted definition, the Committee endorses this multi-dimensional understanding of poverty, which reflects the indivisible and interdependent nature of all human rights. Poverty is not confined to developing countries and societies in transition, it is a global phenomenon experienced in varying degrees by all States. Many developed States have impoverished groups, such as minorities or indigenous peoples, within their The International Human Framework jurisdictions. Also, within many rich countries there norms or rules upon which detailed global, national are and community-level poverty eradication policies can be constructed. While poverty raises complex multi-sectoral issues that are not amenable to simple solutions, the application of the international human rights normative framework to these issues helps to ensure that essential elements of antipoverty strategies, such as non-discrimination, equality, participation and accountability, receive the sustained attention they deserve, In this context, the Committee wishes to highlight briefly three features of rural and urban areas where people live in appalling conditions - pockets of poverty amid wealth. In all States, women and girls bear a disproportionate burden of poverty are often permanently poverty, and children growing up in disadvantaged. In the Committee's view, the greater empowerment of women in particular is an essential precondition for the eradication of global poverty. 6. While the common theme underlying poor people's experiences is one of powerlessness,> human rights can empower individuals and communities. The challenge is to connect the powerless with the empowering potential of human human rights are not a panacea, rights. Although they can help to equalize the distribution and exercise of power within and between societies. Rights Normative 9. International human rights provide a framework of the international human rights normative framework. 10. First, the normative framework encompasses the entire range of civil, cultural, economic, political and social rights, and the right to development. While the rights enumerated in the Covenant, such as the right to an adequate standard of living, are of central importance to the poor, the Committee emphasizes that all civil and political rights, as well as the right to development, are also indispensable to those living Definitions 7. In the recent past, poverty was often defined as insufficient income to buy a minimum basket of goods Report 2000/2001: For example, see Deepa Narayan, Voices of the Poor, According to chapter Il, entitled “Eradication of poverty in the Programme of Action of the World Summit for Social Development (1995): “Poverty has various manifestations, including lack of income and productive resources sufficient to ensure sustainable livelihoods; hunger and malnutrition; ill health; limited or lack of access to education and other basic services; increased morbidity and mortality from illness; homelessness and inadequate housing; unsafe environments; and social discrimination and exclusion. It is also characterized 7 University Press for the World Bank, 2000. a lack of participation in decision-making and in civil, social and cultural life.” (para. 19) and services, Today, the term is usually understood more broadly as the lack of basic capabilities to ts 4 5 World Bank, World Development Attacking Poverty, Oxford University Press, p.v. Can Anyone Hear Us?, published by them Oxford 6 GENERAL COMMENTS AND STATEMENTS 51