Rethinking poverty: report on the world social situation 2010

This report highlights risks from climate change and seeks to contribute to rethinking poverty and its eradication. It addresses the needs to ensure food security as well as to provide adequate financing and technology support for developing countries to cope with climate change, which adverse effects are already evident, as natural disasters are more frequent and more devastating and developing countries more vulnerable.

The report affirms the urgent need for a strategic shift away from the market fundamentalist thinking, policies and practices of recent decades towards more sustainable development- and equity-oriented policies appropriate to national conditions and circumstances. It makes a compelling case for rethinking poverty and poverty-reduction efforts, and urges governments to play a developmental role, integrating economic and social policies that support inclusive output and employment growth, while attacking inequality and promoting justice.

The report serves as a background document for discussion and policy analysis of socio-economic matters at the intergovernmental level, and aims at contributing to the identification of emerging social trends of international concern and to the analysis of relationships among major development issues which have both international and national dimensions.