Work is the best route out of poverty. The solution lies in adopting policies that produce a "decent work dividend" that will stimulate balanced and more sustainable growth for countries and better lives for people.
Sustainable livelihood security must be provided for the poor. Achieving this goal requires action at three levels: asset (resource) reform, employment strategy, and development ethos.
Tools for poverty eradication are: job creation, guaranteed rights at work, basic social protection and the promotion of dialogue and conflict resolution.
This strategy features in the framework of Agenda 21 as formulated at UNCED (Rio de Janeiro, 1992), now coordinated by the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development and implemented through national and local authorities.
The poor have enormous reserves of courage, ingenuity, persistence and solidarity that helps them get through each day on less than the equivalent of $2. Instead of waging war on poverty from the top down, the multilateral system must find ways of tapping into this unused potential. In many ways, the working poor are the ultimate entrepreneurs.
To promote sustainable livelihoods, power must be rooted in the localized economies. Economic policy should be based on full-cost accounting which incorporates social and environmental costs and benefits. Trade agreements and tax policies should favor local needs over export marketing, encourage sustainable production and consumption, and support renewable resource technologies. Such policies will support worker rights, debt relief, and local control over resources within a framework of broader responsibility to share and protect resources.