The National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia today marked 17 October, World Poverty Day. The Poverty Reduction Committee, the World Bank and the United Nations Development Programme took part in organising the Committee’s eighteenth session, which was devoted to the millennium aims in the fight against poverty. The session was attended by deputies, officials of the Government of the Republic of Serbia, the UNDP, the World Bank, the Standing Conference of Cities and Municipalities, and the non-governmental sector.

In her introductory address, the chairperson of the Poverty Reduction Committee, Snezana Stojanovic-Plavsic, underlined the importance of co-operation between the Committee, the UNDP and the Government’s Poverty Reduction Task Force, stressing the Committee’s legislative contribution in the development of a national strategy to tackle poverty. She devoted special attention to the establishment of the Children’s Rights Sub-Committee, since latest data indicate that children were the most numerous group among the poor. She also spoke of solidarity and care for those most affected, as shown by the help given to flood-stricken regions of Serbia.

In his speech, the Chairman of the National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia, Predrag Markovic, said that poverty was a global issue. In his words, poverty was no longer only a problem for the poor, but is rather increasingly becoming a problem for the rich nations. To use a more vulgar approach to the problem of poverty, Mr Markovic concluded, one could say that there are three types of nations – those that pay to have their people lose weight, those that pay to have their people gain weight, and, finally, those where people die of starvation every day. He added that the gap between the richest and poorest nations was increasing, especially when it came to providing assistance to those most in need: “This year saw flooding in Serbia’s poorest regions. And who helped the poor first? Those who are also poor – the army. Unfortunately, the army is also poor in our society, but it was the first to give help. This sort of solidarity is a type of struggle. There must be a minimum of solidarity to reduce the gap between the rich and the poor”, Mr Markovic stressed. In passing new legislation, the National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia is giving its contribution to reducing poverty: of a total of 170 laws adopted so far, as many as 49 deal with poverty-related issues.

The head of the World Bank Office in Serbia and Montenegro, Carolyn Junger, underlined that one tenth of Serbia’s population was poor, while 20% of the population could fall below the poverty limit. The group most at risk are the Roma, while poverty is greater and increases more rapidly in rural areas. She added that the best way to fight poverty was to foster economic development, improve social security and healthcare, and increase the level of education. This is why, as early as 2001, the World Bank granted a 700 million dollar loan to Serbia and Montenegro for various programmes aimed at reducing poverty.