A UN conference aimed at sharing knowledge and good practice for poverty reduction in Asia and Pacific region opened Monday in the Sri Lankan capital of Colombo.
The workshop, organized by UNDP Asia and Pacific Regional Center in Colombo (RCC), will examine a range of innovative projects that have proved effective in lifting families out of poverty.
Omar Noman, Policies and Programs chief of the RCC told reporters that the conference brought together development practitioners from government, civil society and international organizations.
Noman said 20 successful cases will be discussed during the three-day workshop with the participation of about 100 delegates from over 20 countries.
These cases cover diverse issues ranging from housing and tourism to socio-economic empowerment of women and health insurance.
The outputs of the workshop will be the case studies with accompanying multimedia material and a generic summary of good practice for use by development practitioners, said Noman.
World leaders have committed themselves in 2000 to halve the proportion of people living in extreme poverty (whose income is less than 1 U.S. dollar a day) between 1990 and 2015.
UN officials said 2007 is crucial as half way to meet the targets of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG).
In its recently published MDG report, the United Nations said the proportion of people living in extreme poverty fell from nearly a third to less than one fifth between 1990 and 2004.
"If the trend is sustained, the MDG poverty reduction target will be met for the world as a whole and for most regions," the report said.
