Presidential Clean-up Campaign.

Article by:By Liandra S Ganyiwa

World end poverty day, also known as the International Day of the Eradication of Poverty is celebrated annually on the 17th of October and is of paramount importance to the populace in the fight against poverty globally. The overall objective of the commemorations seeks to provide an opportunity to acknowledge the efforts and struggle of people living in poverty as well as provide a moment for recognition of the fact that poor people are the first ones to fight poverty taking into consideration their concerns. The observance of the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty dates back to 17 October 1987. On that day, over a hundred thousand people gathered at the Trocadéro in Paris , where the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was signed in 1948, to honor the victims of extreme poverty, violence and hunger. They proclaimed that poverty is a violation of human rights and affirmed the need to come together to ensure that these rights are respected. These convictions are inscribed in a commemorative stone unveiled on this day. Since then, people of all backgrounds, beliefs and social origins have gathered every year on October 17th to renew their commitment and show their solidarity with the poor. Replicas of the commemorative stone have been unveiled around the world and serve as a gathering place to celebrate the Day. One such replica is located in the garden of United Nations Headquarters and is the site of the annual commemoration organized by the United Nations Secretariat in New York.

On the 22nd of December 1992 the UN General Assembly officially set the 17th of October as the International Day of the Eradication of Poverty and invited all states to devote the day to presenting and promoting, as appropriate in the national context, concrete activities for the eradication of poverty and destitution. Basically poverty entails the lack of a socially acceptable standard of living and from a world’s perspective, due to the increasingly growing populations in countries, rates of poverty keep increasing. This is because population growth places governments and economies under a lot of pressure to provide them with basic amenities. In some instances especially in developing countries, poverty is rampant to the extent of witnessing people staying in shacks or squatter camps. This shows a lack of proper protective shelter exacerbated by the growing population which puts a lot of pressure on the available resources. In some cases, children are unable to go to school as the areas are remotely located meaning school kids have to walk long distances to access educational services. Sometimes there is scarcity of water and food which is heightened by climate change and this exposes populations to hunger, starvation and malnutrition. Therefore in a bid to advocate to poverty eradication, the United Nations set goals, known as Sustainable Development Goals which seek to look into each and every sphere of human survival with poverty eradication as one of the goals. Sustainable development caters for the needs of present generations without compromising those of future generations. A large number of countries have adopted strategies to reducing poverty. In Zimbabwe for example, the effects of climate change have adversely affected agricultural food systems. A considerable size of population in Zimbabwe relies on rain-fed agriculture, and since rainfall patterns have become erratic, methods to adapt to the current situation have been put in place and these include the use of conservation agricultural techniques which involves use of minimum tillage methods, maintenance of a permanent soil cover and intercropping. The Pfumbvudza/intwasa scheme worked tremendously in achieving the desired outcome of increased yields during the 2020-2021 rainy seasons. Governments in the world over are also encouraging and assisting people on the need to diversify their income streams so as to make sure they are able to provide for themselves and their families. This is evidence that quite a number of moves are being made to eradicate poverty. However, since the United Nations seeks to have reduced poverty by 2030, is it anywhere near achieving that goal? That is a topic up for debate. A source argued against the idea attributing that to climate change as well as Covid 19 pandemic which has seen economies of countries plummeting that leaving people in poverty and halting progress of poverty reduction by a decade.