Poverty remains a crucial development issue. While substantial progress has been made globally towards the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and while the overall poverty rate is expected to fall to 15 per cent by 2015, there will still be approximately 920 million people in the developing world living below the poverty line.
Poverty is not always easy to address. The multi-dimensional characteristics of poverty make the policy and programmatic responses very complex. And achieving cohesive public response to poverty across relevant sectors is challenged by evolving new challenges such as climate change, which disproportionately affects poor and vulnerable countries and population groups.