JOHANNESBURG SUMMIT 2002
Poverty eradication, along with other issues, is one of the most important objectives of World Summit on Sustainable Development to be held on 26 August to 4 September 2002.

Johannesburg Summit 2002-the World Summit on Sustainable Development, the biggest international gathering in 10 years, will be held on 26 August to 4 September 2002, bringing together tens of thousand of participants from governmental and non-governmental organizations.
Johannesburg Summit 2002 is in the continuum of 1992 Earth Summit in Rio where the international community adopted Agenda 21 that is an unprecedented global plan for sustainable development. According to Our Common Future: Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development (The Brundtland Report, 1987), sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generation to meet their own needs. Johannesburg Summit 2002 will focus on turning plans into action for achieving sustainable development.

Poverty: the greatest global challenge facing the world today

According to the second paragraph of Draft Plan of Implementation for the World Summit on Sustainable Development(Draft Plan), Poverty eradication, changing unsustainable patterns of production and consumption, and protecting and managing the natural resource base of economic and social development are overarching objectives of, and essential requirements for, sustainable development.
Among those objectives, it is agreed that eradication poverty is the greatest global challenge facing the world today and an indispensable requirement for sustainable development according to the Draft Plan paragraph 6. Poverty is recognized as not only the cause but also the effect of environmental degradation. Desertification is one of the examples of poverty causing local residents to overexploit natural resources, which in turn causes expansion of desertification.
Poverty is closely related to human health, food security, education, and environmental issues like water supply, safe drinking water, rural residence, unsustainable agricultural practices, food availability and affordability, desertification and sanitation.

Action Plan for Poverty Eradication

One fifth of the world's people live on less than one dollar per day, and about 1.1 billion people lack access to safe drinking water. Contaminated drinking water and an inadequate supply of water account for 10 per cent of all diseases in developing countries. It is agreed to halve, by 2015, the proportion of the world?s people whose income is less than $ 1 a day and the proportion of people who suffer from hunger and, by the same date, to halve the proportion of people without access to safe drinking water, according to the Draft Plan. In order to eradicate poverty, it is also agreed to promote women's equal access to and full participation in decision-making at all levels, deliver basic health services, ensure completion of a full course of primary schooling and equal access to all levels of education, provide access to agricultural resources, build basic rural infrastructure, transfer basic sustainable agricultural techniques and knowledge, increase food availability and affordability, combat desertification, and increase access to sanitation. Action plans for eradicating poverty include improvement of access to environmentally-friendly energy services, improvement in the lives of slum dwellers as proposed in the Cities Without Slums, increasing decent employment, credit, and income for the urban poor, addressing child labour and its root causes, etc.
Among the paragraphs of the Draft Plan, most(89%) of the principles and implementation plan related to poverty eradication are fully agreed; yet, establishing a world solidarity fund to eradication poverty and to promote social and human development in the developing countries did not reach an agreement until the end of 4th Preparatory Committee(PrepCom4) in Bali.

Efforts for Poverty Eradication in Korea

About 3 decades ago, Korea is one of the poor countries where 40.9 percent of the total population lived in absolute poverty. The percentage of the population living in absolute poverty has drastically deceased due to rapid economic growth, estimating 3.9 percent of total population living in absolute poverty in 1995. However, the economic crises at the end of 1997 have brought a massive unemployment, causing increased number of the poor. Therefore, the expansion and reinforcement of social safety net was necessary for coping with this problem.
Korean government has presented a guideline for social welfare policies, so called Productive Welfare. Distinguished from old measure of direct aid, this principle focus on providing public aid for capacity building, similar to the Draft Plan focusing on capacity building for the poor like providing primary schooling for all children. The national strategies for poverty eradication focuses on: - Securing the minimum standard of living for the poor; - Improving work capabilities through occupational training, increasing work opportunities for the poor, and providing business fund loans; - Increasing welfare services for the elderly, the disabled, and children; - Supporting the procurement of housing (e.g., public housing for the poor, convalescent home) and providing loan of reservation for the poor; - Increasing the extent of medical insurance benefits; - Enlarging the boundary of unemployment insurance; - Providing measures to tackle the newly emerging problem of digital divide in this era of digital economy

Korea's International Cooperation for Poverty Eradication

As one of the OECD countries, Korea endeavors to eradicate poverty in the least developed or developing countries. Korea's Official Development Assistance (ODA) expenditure reached USD 212 million during 2002; the fund contributed to developing countries like Uzbekistan, Vietnam, China, International Development Association, Africa Development Bank and Asia Development Bank. Korea will join in international efforts to promote development and eradicate poverty from developing countries, particularly from the least developed countries.
Along with the financial aid, Korea implements technical assistance programs for the least countries' capacity building. For example, nine training programs for officials in charge of trade from developed countries have been conducted with 164 participants from 24 countries from 1992 to 2001.

Road to Johannesburg

Since September 2000, the Republic of Korea established a Presidential Commission on Sustainable Development (PCSD) and actively participated in the four Preparatory Committees and endeavours to establish foundations for the accomplishment of sustainable development.