Download Example-Position-Paper.pdf and more Schemes and Mind Maps Decision Making in PDF only on Docsity! Committee: General Plenary Topic: Open-Eradication of Poverty Country: Thailand School: Houston High School Name: Johnny Student Eradication of poverty was a high priority of development worldwide in the 1990s, yet the extent of the problem is still deeply ingrained in many developing countries. To eliminate the problem completely, public awareness and a complete understanding of the issue itself are required. Currently, people are ignorant to some of the main roots of poverty: environment and lack of a gender focus that women are especially deprived of required needs. Thailand supports a continued effort from the United Nations towards the eradication of poverty by increasing environmental protection and control, continuing to increase awareness on the issue, and focusing on the women linked to poverty. The eradication of poverty must begin by attacking the groups most affected by the problem. Women compose the “majority of the 1.5 billion people living on one dollar a day or less.” These women are denied access to resources of credit, land, and inheritance. They lack access to education and other services and hardly have any participation in decision making for their communities. Thailand is aware that efforts have been made to direct the focus of poverty onto women’s conditions in various countries such as Cameroon, Madagascar, and Niger, who have identified women as a specific target group in their national poverty eradication programs as per the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing held in 1995. Yet many countries, especially those of the Middle East, continue to withhold women’s rights. Therefore Thailand believes that the UN should take actions in globalizing the need to focus on poverty of women. As the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Thailand Dr. Surakiart Sathirathai stated at the fifty- seventh session of the United Nations General Assembly, “poverty eradication can never succeed unless there are genuine efforts neighborly, regionally, and globally”. Women must first and foremost have autonomy; because this is often denied to them, the focus should be on providing access to educational and economic opportunities, major factors in rising out of poverty. In the successful actions of Thailand’s National Commission on Women’s Affairs, programs such as Village Welfare Assistance Centers helped to increase women self- employment and involvement in community problems. The female labor force participation has increased to 67 percent, “higher than any other country in East Asia.” Based on the results of these programs, the United Nations should take on similar actions to a global scale. To completely and effectively eradicate poverty, Thailand believes that the United Nations must begin to act on a global level. The important parts of the problem are believed to be environmental and overcoming poverty; thus they should be tackled first.
