President,
We thank the Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty for presenting for his report.
We agree that it is imperative to include a human rights perspective when addressing poverty and development issues.
The Special Rapporteur has a valid point when discussing inequality and political power. Referring to Amartya Sen, the Special Rapporteur argues that democracy and upholding of related civil and political rights, such as freedom of press and the right to vote, are connected to the non-occurrence of famines.
We could add that according to some research, in 1990 only 9 per cent of the poor of the world lived in middle income countries. Ten years later, in 2010, the equivalent figure was 72 per cent. Such a geographical shift of poverty is significant and could indicate that there are structural reasons for the poverty, which has to do with distribution of power and lack of empowerment of poor people.
We would like to ask the special rapporteur to elaborate on the impact of civil and political rights when tackling poverty?