About 3000 years ago Aristotle had observed poverty is a parent of revolution and crime . More recently Alfred Marshal in his famous Principles of Economics stated that a study of causes of poverty is the study of the causes of the degradation of large part of mankind . Mr. President, At Copenhagen the international community had recognized that broad based and sustained economic growth was a pre-requisite to eradicate poverty and promote development. Regrettably, the prevailing international environment constrains the ability of most of the developing countries to create conditions for a broad based and sustained economic growth in an increasingly integrating world economy. The realization of the target agreed at the Social Summit would require mobilization of adequate resources for social spending during the next decade.
Globalization poses new challenges to developing countries.
An enabling international environment would greatly help developing countries in achieving broad based sustained growth. The international community must work in a spirit of partnership and shared future to achieve this objective. The unsustainable external debt burden has crippled the capacity of the developing countries to make investments for social development. This problem must be addressed expeditiously. The HIPC initiative is encouraging but it should be realized that HIPCs accounts for only 10 per cent of the developing countries debt.