The United Nations launch a proposal to establish a world solidarity fund for poverty eradication

At its fifty-seventh session, the General Assembly of the United Nations launched a proposal for a world solidarity fund for poverty eradication. This trust fund, which would be managed by the UNDP, is supposed to finance programs for poverty alleviation and other Millennium Development Goals such as access to safe water, the reduction of child mortality by two thirds by 2015, and universal access to education. A high-level committee of no more than nine eminent persons appointed by the General Assembly is supposed provide strategic direction and advocacy for the fund, and a technical secretariat set up by the UNDP is to review the funding requests from community-based organizations and small private sector entities, channeled through the United Nations resident coordinators.

The idea is that the World Solidarity Fund would receive voluntary contributions from individuals, foundations, organizations and business sector enterprises. It would not receive funding the effect of which would be to divert the flow of funding allocated to official development assistance. Its effects on poverty should be evaluated every five years.