International action to end poverty

The Millennium Development Goals
The Convention on the Rights of the Child
What is Plan doing to end global poverty

What are governments doing to reduce global poverty?

The Millennium Development Goals
Established at the world summits of the 1990s, the Millennium Development Goals are a set of eight goals to be met by 2015 through joint action across the globe. This is now only five years away.

One of the main MDGs is to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger. Two standards have been set towards its eradication: a call for a reduction by half of the proportion of people living on less than one dollar a day and the reduction by half of the proportion of people suffering from hunger. While great success has been seen in many areas of Asia, little progress is being made in sub-Saharan Africa.

Economic crisis is slowing the progress being made on the MDGs, however, the number of people in extreme poverty is still expected to decrease in 2009. Moving toward reaching this goal, those in extreme poverty has shrank from 1/2 of the population in developing regions to just over 1/4 of the population.

The UN has called for new energy to be put into providing decent employment opportunities for women and young people outside of their homes, as well as, toward increasing the availability and decreasing the cost of food. Where progress is slow, it is because social and policies changes are needed.

Learn more about the Millennium Development Goals.

The Convention on the Rights of the Child
The Convention on the Rights of the Child is a universally agreed upon set of standards securing minimum human rights to one of the most vulnerable populations, children under the age of 18.

The Convention is based upon the idea that children need special protection in order to ensure that their basic human rights are being met. Applied to every being, everywhere, the Convention on the Rights of the Child applies to all children regardless of race, gender, ethnicity, wealth, or religion.

Rights that the Convention states are guaranteed to children include the right to survival, the right to protection from exploitation, abuse, or harmful influences, and the right to develop to their fullest. These rights are based upon four cornerstones: the right to life, survival, and development, non-discrimination, respect for the views of children, and devotion to the best interests of children. Governments are called upon to ratify the Convention on the Rights of the Child in order to guarantee them the basic human rights needed to develop to their fullest potential.

The Convention on the Rights of the Child serves as an additional tool to allow individuals, non-governmental organizations and governments to speak up for the protection of human rights. It requires children and children’s voices to be considered in all policies and programs that affect them; in this case, to end poverty.

Learn more about the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

What is Plan doing to end global poverty?

Improving economic household security is an absolute priority for those living on the margins of survival.

Plan's microfinance programs are designed to help establish financial services to the poor. These programs improve the lives of women and their children by promoting their economic security and increasing their ability to manage and reduce financial risks.

Microfinance, the provision of small loans and savings facilities, is an effective mechanism for helping households to increase their economic security. Families use loans and savings to provide for the basic rights and needs of children (food, school fees, medical costs, protection, etc) as well as to cope with emergencies and economic shocks.

Plan is committed to providing microfinance services for the poor, with special emphasis on access for women. We work in partnership with local microfinance service providers as well as organizations that help communities organize their own savings and credit associations. The aim is to establish and support lending and saving programs that can eventually become financially self-sufficient.

Plan's 2009 State of the World's Girls report 'Girls in the Global Economy: Adding It All Up' highlights the issues girls and women face growing up in the global economy and warns that failing to send girls to school is costing the world's poorest countries billions of dollars each year.

Because I am a Girl: The state of the world's girls 2009
Girls in the Global Economy: Adding It All Up
The 2009 report focuses on the global economy and warns that failing to send girls to school is costing the world's poorest countries billions of pounds each year.

Summary (1.08mb | 12 pages)

Full report (7.09mb | 154 pages)