Eradicating poverty everywhere is more than a moral imperative - it is a practical possibility. That is the most important message of the Human Development Report 1997. The world has the resources and the know-how to create a poverty-free world in less than a generation.

The Report focuses not just on poverty of incomes but on poverty from a human development perspective - poverty as a denial of choices and opportunities for living a tolerable life. The strategies proposed in the Report go beyond income redistribution - encompassing action in the critical areas of gender equality, pro-poor growth, globalization and the democratic governance of development.