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Ending Poverty
The International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, marked on October 17, reminds us that ending poverty means ensuring dignity, justice, and inclusion, not just income. In 2025, the focus is on ending social and institutional maltreatment by ensuring respect and effective support for families. Too often, families in poverty face stigma and harmful systems that punish rather than help, leading to fear, mistrust, and even separation. This year’s theme calls for a shift from control to care, surveillance to support, and top-down to co-created solutions.
Nelson Mandela’s life showed how one person can turn oppression into unity and justice. His legacy compels us to renew our global commitment to peace, dignity, and equality. This year’s theme highlights that ending poverty and inequality is still in our hands. Mandela believed in grassroots action and the power of communities to drive change. His life continues to inspire the UN as it marks its 80th anniversary. On Mandela Day, we ask people around the world to take action and make a difference in their communities. Let us honour his commitment to freedom, justice, and human rights today and always.
Eradicating poverty is more than a goal; it’s a moral duty. The UN envisions a world where poverty becomes a relic of the past—a vision central to the 2030 Agenda’s first Sustainable Development Goal. From 1990 to 2014, remarkable progress lifted over a billion people from extreme poverty. Yet, setbacks in 2020 forced 71 million back into hardship, revealing the fragility of those gains. The UN urges courage and compassion in building inclusive strategies, directing resources where they are needed most, and turning hope and opportunity into universal rights—not fleeting privileges for the few.
A highlights the rising global hunger crisis, urging urgent action and emphasizing how trade can stabilize food systems and reduce vulnerabilities.
We may think we understand the concept of poverty, but poverty is very complex and has far-reaching effects. It negatively impacts education, economies, and the overall health and well-being of individuals and the communities they live in. By fully understanding the meaning of poverty, we can develop more effective measures to fight it and build a better future for all of humanity. By 2025, the United Nations Development Programme () aims to help 100 million people escape multidimensional poverty so they can reach their full potential.
“Ending poverty in all its forms everywhere” – the overarching goal of the for Sustainable Development – reflects a growing consensus on the need to consider other dimensions, beyond monetary ones, when thinking about poverty. This year's theme for the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty (17 October) is about ending social and institutional maltreatment and Acting Together for just, peaceful and inclusive societies. Social and institutional maltreatment is a catastrophic loss of human potential to society.
This year's International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, celebrated annually on October 17th, aims to promote understanding and dialogue between people living in poverty and the wider society. It also calls for universal access to decent work and social protection to uphold human dignity and emphasizes that work must empower people, provide fair wages and safe working conditions, and recognize the value and humanity of all workers. Universal social protection is also urgently needed to guarantee income security for everyone, prioritizing society's most vulnerable members.
The world is at a crossroad, does it reposnd to crisis after crisis or invest in a structural change for a stronger, more sustainable future? Global crises have exposed how inadequate our resources are to prevent future emergencies. With 4 in 5 of the world’s poorest people living in rural areas, the road to a resilient future runs through rural communities. is investing in rural people for a sustainable future. By making the right choices and the right investments now, a new day—and a better future—is possible.