Extreme Poverty and World Governance

In September 2005, the report Kofi Annan presented
to the United Nations General Assembly,
In larger freedom : towards development, security
and human rights for all, marked a significant
change in the content of the goals proposed to the
United Nations, sixty years on from the organization’s
foundation.

To justify the project to reform the UN, the main
goal proposed to member states moved away from the
historical goal of international peace and security,
focusing instead on “research and development, security
and human rights for all.” The report proposed
founding the international social pact on the three
elements of development, security and human rights,
thus ensuring the international community’s capacity
to implement the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights. [1]

The women and men who live in conditions
of extreme poverty are the first to be confronted,
often from one generation to the next, with a permanent
absence of security, lack of development and
violation of their fundamental rights.

These same people, the poorest members of society,
with their extraordinary history of fighting to defend
their dignity whilst some or even all their rights
are violated, have a great deal of experience and
knowledge to contribute to the struggle for a more
harmonious, united and peaceful world.

The proposals outlined in this Paper have twin aims.
On the one hand, to place the eradication of extreme
poverty at the heart of the political goals pursued
by a renewed world governance. On the other
hand, to recognize the participation of the poorest
members of humanity in elaborating new principles
for shaping future world governance as an essential
condition in the success of the enterprise.