Progress in poverty and hunger reduction are ideal and we should learn from the success stories in handful of countries.

The Moderator began with addressing significant gains in eradicating poverty and hunger, along with services access to basic human needs. In line with “Leaving no one behind”, universal provision of basic social services could be achieved by ambitious measures, full participation of local society and empowered humans.

Mr. Park asserted the value of community health in providing basic life-saving service, reaching the rural and indigenous population and vulnerable groups, say, women and children. Despite the challenges in service delivery and hostility a few countries, he confidently asserted cross-sector approaches would be the future, in scaling up community health protect for wider reaching out service.

Speaking of the strategies in poverty eradication, Ms. Diez reiterated the urgency on refining the mindset of poverty, where she believed multi-dimensional poverty required comprehensive indicators in determination, rather than rely on household earnings. In addition, Ms Pandya-Lorch stressed that rapid urbanization, climate change and regional conflict and displacement threatens the food security, contributed much to the existing problem, where lessons from Brazil, China and Thailand should be learnt on, followed by Representative of China who shared their approaches in achieving common prosperity and eliminating poverty.

Meeting: High-level political forum on sustainable development, “Lifting people out of poverty and addressing basic needs” convened under the auspices of the Council

Date/Time/Location: Monday, July 11, 2016; 15:00-18:00; Trusteeship Council Chamber

Speakers: H.E. Mr. Sven Jürgenson, Permanent Representative of Estonia to the UN and Vice President of ECOSOC; Mr. Michael Park, Director of Strategy and Operations of the Aspen Management Partnership for Health at the Aspen Institute; Ms. Sarina Prabasi, CEO of WaterAid America; Ms. Cristina Diez, Director of International Relations Training at the International Movement ATD Fourth World; Ms. Rajul Pandya-Lorch, Chief of Staff and Head of the 2020 Vision Initiative at the International Food Policy Research Institute; Representative of China

Written By: Kelvin HO