After the 2007 campaign entitled "Ending Extreme Poverty, a Road to Peace", the attached declaration Striving Together to End Poverty towards Peace (STEPP) will demonstrate that an increasing number of men and women want to be able to count on each other in their search for justice and fraternity.

Let’s hope more and more people will STEPP up to the challenge and join us.

Mohandas K. Gandhi said that “poverty is the worst form of violence”, a poignant reminder to all peoples and governments this month amid the financial crisis in the United States, and the eve of the mobilisation of more than 67 million people who will participate in mobilisation against poverty and inequality around 17 October around the globe.

This month begins the Second United Nations Decade for the Eradication of Poverty (2008-2017). The aim is simply to support a broad framework for poverty eradication, through strengthening the leadership role of the United Nations in promoting international cooperation for development.

In spite of the best efforts of civil society organisations, over 50,000 people die every day from conditions of extreme poverty.

Indeed, this is a flagrant violation of human rights, and one which leaders of 189 countries declared to be untenable in the 2000 Millennium Declaration.

Joining with ATD Fourth World and all organisations and governments of good will, we call on those who pledged to the Millennium Development Goals to do everything in their power to end this gross violation.

Source: Dignity International