【明報專訊】Imagine there is no poverty. Though it remains a distant dream, the world has actually made great strides in combating poverty over the past decades.

◆Basic facts

Date: 17 October

Year of establishment: 1992

Proclaimed by: The United Nations General Assembly (聯合國大會)

Aim: To promote awareness of the need to eradicate poverty and destitution in all countries

◆Measuring poverty

According to the UN, although extreme poverty rates have been cut by more than half since 1990, 836 million people still live in extreme poverty in 2015. About one in five persons in developing regions lives on less than US＄1.25 a day. The overwhelming majority of people in extreme poverty live in two regions: South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa (撒哈拉以南非洲).

How can we combat poverty?

Some take the view that poverty is like diseases and it is impossible to get rid of it completely. But many things can actually be done to reduce poverty greatly. The first is to increase the supply of basic necessities such as food, healthcare and education. The second is to increase the poor's ability to provide for themselves. Governments' welfare measures, like Hong Kong's CSSA scheme (綜援計劃), play a key role in combating poverty. Some people believe that governments have a duty to address wealth inequalities (貧富懸殊) by taxing the rich.

◆Poverty in Hong Kong

The government first set a 「poverty line (貧窮線)」 in September 2013. Defined as half the median income for a given household size, it is reviewed annually. As of 2014, the poverty line equated to ＄3500 a month earned by an individual and up to ＄18,800 a month earned by a family of six or more.

Earlier this year, Chief Secretary for Administration Carrie Lam (政務司長林鄭月娥) provoked controversy by suggesting that benefits citizens receive through public housing should be taken into account in calculating the poverty line.

According to the Hong Kong Poverty Situation Report 2014, there were around 960,000 people who lived in poverty in 2014, 10,000 fewer than in the previous year. Meanwhile, the poverty rate was 14.3%.

◆The UN's poverty

eradication targets

As part of last year's International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), officially known as Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, were adopted. The following are some of the goals;

- By 2030, to eradicate extreme poverty for all people everywhere, currently measured as people living on less than ＄1.25 a day.

- By 2030, to reduce at least by half the proportion of men, women and children of all ages living in poverty in all its dimensions according to national definitions.

- To implement nationally appropriate social protection systems and measures for all, by 2030, to achieve substantial coverage of the poor and the vulnerable.