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GENERAL
A/CONF.151/26 (Vol. I)
12 August 1992
ORIGINAL: ENGLISH
REPORT OF THE UNITED NATIONS CONFERENCE ON
ENVIRONMENT AND DEVELOPMENT
(Rio de Janeiro, 3-14 June 1992)
Chapter 3
COMBATING POVERTY
PROGRAMME AREA
Enabling the poor to achieve sustainable livelihoods
Basis for action
3.1. Poverty is a complex multidimensional problem with origins in
both the national and international domains. No uniform solution can
be found for global application. Rather, country-specific programmes
to tackle poverty and international efforts supporting national
efforts, as well as the parallel process of creating a supportive
international environment, are crucial for a solution to this problem.
The eradication of poverty and hunger, greater equity in income
distribution and human resource development remain major challenges
everywhere. The struggle against poverty is the shared responsibility
of all countries.
3.2. While managing resources sustainably, an environmental policy
that focuses mainly on the conservation and protection of resources
must take due account of those who depend on the resources for their
livelihoods. Otherwise it could have an adverse impact both on poverty
and on chances for long-term success in resource and environmental
conservation. Equally, a development policy that focuses mainly on
increasing the production of goods without addressing the
sustainability of the resources on which production is based will
sooner or later run into declining productivity, which could also have
an adverse impact on poverty. A specific anti-poverty strategy is
therefore one of the basic conditions for ensuring sustainable
development. An effective strategy for tackling the problems of
poverty, development and environment simultaneously should begin by
focusing on resources, production and people and should cover
demographic issues, enhanced health care and education, the rights of
women, the role of youth and of indigenous people and local communities
and a democratic participation process in association with improved
governance.
3.3. Integral to such action is, together with international support,
the promotion of economic growth in developing countries that is both
sustained and sustainable and direct action in eradicating poverty by
strengthening employment and income-generating programmes.
Objectives
3.4. The long-term objective of enabling all people to achieve
sustainable livelihoods should provide an integrating factor that
allows policies to address issues of development, sustainable resource
management and poverty eradication simultaneously. The objectives of
this programme area are:
(a) To provide all persons urgently with the opportunity to earn
a sustainable livelihood;
(b) To implement policies and strategies that promote adequate
levels of funding and focus on integrated human development policies,
including income generation, increased local control of resources,
local institution-strengthening and capacity-building and greater
involvement of non-governmental organizations and local levels of
government as delivery mechanisms;
(c) To develop for all poverty-stricken areas integrated
strategies and programmes of sound and sustainable management of the
environment, resource mobilization, poverty eradication and
alleviation, employment and income generation;
(d) To create a focus in national development plans and budgets
on investment in human capital, with special policies and programmes
directed at rural areas, the urban poor, women and children.
Activities
3.5. Activities that will contribute to the integrated promotion of
sustainable livelihoods and environmental protection cover a variety of
sectoral interventions involving a range of actors, from local to
global, and are essential at every level, especially the community and
local levels. Enabling actions will be necessary at the national and
international levels, taking full account of regional and subregional
conditions to support a locally driven and country-specific approach.
In general design, the programmes should:
(a) Focus on the empowerment of local and community groups
through the principle of delegating authority, accountability and
resources to the most appropriate level to ensure that the programme
will be geographically and ecologically specific;
(b) Contain immediate measures to enable those groups to
alleviate poverty and to develop sustainability;
(c) Contain a long-term strategy aimed at establishing the best
possible conditions for sustainable local, regional and national
development that would eliminate poverty and reduce the inequalities
between various population groups. It should assist the most
disadvantaged groups - in particular, women, children and youth within
those groups - and refugees. The groups will include poor
smallholders, pastoralists, artisans, fishing communities, landless
people, indigenous communities, migrants and the urban informal sector.
3.6. The focus here is on specific cross-cutting measures - in
particular, in the areas of basic education, primary/maternal health
care, and the advancement of women.
(a) Empowering communities
3.7. Sustainable development must be achieved at every level of
society. Peoples' organizations, women's groups and non-governmental
organizations are important sources of innovation and action at the
local level and have a strong interest and proven ability to promote
sustainable livelihoods. Governments, in cooperation with appropriate
international and non-governmental organizations, should support a
community-driven approach to sustainability, which would include, inter
alia:
(a) Empowering women through full participation in
decision-making;
(b) Respecting the cultural integrity and the rights of
indigenous people and their communities;
(c) Promoting or establishing grass-roots mechanisms to allow for
the sharing of experience and knowledge between communities;
(d) Giving communities a large measure of participation in the
sustainable management and protection of the local natural resources in
order to enhance their productive capacity;
(e) Establishing a network of community-based learning centres
for capacity-building and sustainable development.
(b) Management-related activities
3.8. Governments, with the assistance of and in cooperation with
appropriate international, non-governmental and local community
organizations, should establish measures that will directly or
indirectly:
(a) Generate remunerative employment and productive occupational
opportunities compatible with country-specific factor endowments, on a
scale sufficient to take care of prospective increases in the labour
force and to cover backlogs;
(b) With international support, where necessary, develop adequate
infrastructure, marketing systems, technology systems, credit systems
and the like and the human resources needed to support the above
actions and to achieve a widening of options for resource-poor people.
High priority should be given to basic education and professional
training;
(c) Provide substantial increases in economically efficient
resource productivity and measures to ensure that the local population
benefits in adequate measure from resource use;
(d) Empower community organizations and people to enable them to
achieve sustainable livelihoods;
(e) Set up an effective primary health care and maternal health
care system accessible to all;
(f) Consider strengthening/developing legal frameworks for land
management, access to land resources and land ownership - in
particular, for women - and for the protection of tenants;
(g) Rehabilitate degraded resources, to the extent practicable,
and introduce policy measures to promote sustainable use of resources
for basic human needs;
(h) Establish new community-based mechanisms and strengthen
existing mechanisms to enable communities to gain sustained access to
resources needed by the poor to overcome their poverty;
(i) Implement mechanisms for popular participation - particularly
by poor people, especially women - in local community groups, to
promote sustainable development;
(j) Implement, as a matter of urgency, in accordance with
country-specific conditions and legal systems, measures to ensure that
women and men have the same right to decide freely and responsibly on
the number and spacing of their children and have access to the
information, education and means, as appropriate, to enable them to
exercise this right in keeping with their freedom, dignity and
personally held values, taking into account ethical and cultural
considerations. Governments should take active steps to implement
programmes to establish and strengthen preventive and curative health
facilities, which include women-centred, women-managed, safe and
effective reproductive health care and affordable, accessible services,
as appropriate, for the responsible planning of family size, in keeping
with freedom, dignity and personally held values, taking into account
ethical and cultural considerations. Programmes should focus on
providing comprehensive health care, including pre-natal care,
education and information on health and responsible parenthood and
should provide the opportunity for all women to breast-feed fully, at
least during the first four months post-partum. Programmes should
fully support women's productive and reproductive roles and well-being,
with special attention to the need for providing equal and improved
health care for all children and the need to reduce the risk of
maternal and child mortality and sickness;
(k) Adopt integrated policies aiming at sustainability in the
management of urban centres;
(l) Undertake activities aimed at the promotion of food security
and, where appropriate, food self-sufficiency within the context of
sustainable agriculture;
(m) Support research on and integration of traditional methods of
production that have been shown to be environmentally sustainable;
(n) Actively seek to recognize and integrate informal-sector
activities into the economy by removing regulations and hindrances that
discriminate against activities in those sectors;
(o) Consider making available lines of credit and other
facilities for the informal sector and improved access to land for the
landless poor so that they can acquire the means of production and
reliable access to natural resources. In many instances special
considerations for women are required. Strict feasibility appraisals
are needed for borrowers to avoid debt crises;
(p) Provide the poor with access to fresh water and sanitation;
(q) Provide the poor with access to primary education.
(c) Data, information and evaluation
3.9. Governments should improve the collection of information on
target groups and target areas in order to facilitate the design of
focused programmes and activities, consistent with the target-group
needs and aspirations. Evaluation of such programmes should be
gender-specific, since women are a particularly disadvantaged group.
(d) International and regional cooperation and coordination
3.10. The United Nations system, through its relevant organs,
organizations and bodies, in cooperation with Member States and with
appropriate international and non-governmental organizations, should
make poverty alleviation a major priority and should:
(a) Assist Governments, when requested, in the formulation and
implementation of national action programmes on poverty alleviation and
sustainable development. Action-oriented activities of relevance to
the above objectives, such as poverty eradication, projects and
programmes supplemented where relevant by food aid, and support and
special emphasis on employment and income generation, should be given
particular attention in this regard;
(b) Promote technical cooperation among developing countries for
poverty eradication activities;
(c) Strengthen existing structures in the United Nations system
for coordination of action relating to poverty eradication, including
the establishment of a focal point for information exchange and the
formulation and implementation of replicable pilot projects to combat
poverty;
(d) In the follow-up of the implementation of Agenda 21, give
high priority to the review of the progress made in eradicating
poverty;
(e) Examine the international economic framework, including
resource flows and structural adjustment programmes, to ensure that
social and environmental concerns are addressed, and in this
connection, conduct a review of the policies of international
organizations, bodies and agencies, including financial institutions,
to ensure the continued provision of basic services to the poor and
needy;
(f) Promote international cooperation to address the root causes
of poverty. The development process will not gather momentum if
developing countries are weighted down by external indebtedness, if
development finance is inadequate, if barriers restrict access to
markets and if commodity prices and the terms of trade in developing
countries remain depressed.
Means of implementation
(a) Financing and cost evaluation
3.11. The secretariat of the Conference has estimated the average
total annual cost (1993-2000) of implementing the activities of this
programme to be about $30 billion, including about $15 billion from the
international community on grant or concessional terms. These are
indicative and order-of-magnitude estimates only and have not been
reviewed by Governments. This estimate overlaps estimates in other
parts of Agenda 21. Actual costs and financial terms, including any
that are non-concessional, will depend upon, inter alia, the specific
strategies and programmes Governments decide upon for implementation.
(b) Capacity-building
3.12. National capacity-building for implementation of the above
activities is crucial and should be given high priority. It is
particularly important to focus capacity-building at the local
community level in order to support a community-driven approach to
sustainability and to establish and strengthen mechanisms to allow
sharing of experience and knowledge between community groups at
national and international levels. Requirements for such activities
are considerable and are related to the various relevant sectors of
Agenda 21 calling for requisite international, financial and
technological support.
END OF CHAPTER 3
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