TEHRAN - The International Day for the Eradication of Poverty is held annually on October 17.

Dignity for all in practice is the umbrella theme of the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty for 2022-2023.

Today, many people living in persistent poverty are experiencing their dignity being denied and disrespected.

The United Nations data shows that 1.3 billion people still live in multidimensional poverty with almost half of them children and youth.

Inequalities of opportunities and income are sharply on the rise and, each year, the gap between the rich and poor gets even wider.

Poverty and inequality are not inevitable. They are the result of deliberate decisions or inaction that disempower the poorest and marginalized in our societies and violate their fundamental rights.

********** Social security policies aim to remove poverty

In April, Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Ali Khamenei outlined policies for materializing goals of social security in line with the objectives of the Constitution.

The policies aim to improve social welfare, remove poverty, and support vulnerable strata of society, mainly the elderly, the disabled, and people without caretakers.

Reaching the goals entails an efficient, justice-based, and comprehensive administrative system consistent with Islamic-Iranian patterns and powered by public participation that will expand services to underprivileged people living in urban and rural areas.

President Ebrahim Raisi has also said no one should be denied the opportunity for education due to poverty.

********** Impact of COVID-19 on global poverty

The COVID-19 pandemic is likely to have pushed between 143 and 163 million people into poverty in 2021, according to the UN.

The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted this dynamic, exposing social protection system gaps and failures as well as structural inequalities and diverse forms of discrimination that deepen and perpetuate poverty.

In addition to this, the climate emergency constitutes new violence against people living in poverty, as these communities are unduly burdened by more frequent occurrences of natural disasters and environmental degradation, leading to the destruction of their homes, crops, and livelihoods.

This year marks the 30th anniversary of the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty.

The estimates of the potential short-term economic impact of COVID-19 on global monetary poverty through contractions in per capita household income or consumption show that COVID-19 poses a real challenge to the UN Sustainable Development Goal of ending poverty by 2030 because global poverty could increase for the first time since 1990.

Under the most extreme scenario, the number of people living in poverty could increase by 420–580 million, relative to the latest official recorded figures for 2018.