Tackling poverty reduction

Poverty reduction is the greatest challenge facing humanity today. An ideological commitment to reduce or eradicate this phenomenon should be contemplated as part and parcel of social moral responsibility and shared human values across countries and generations. Failure to do so will have unprecedented repercussions on human development. Although the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) have been accepted as a basis for action to free men, women and children from the dehumanizing conditions of extreme poverty, more than 1 billion people are estimated to be in absolute poverty worldwide. Of these, about 40 per cent, or 400 million people, are living in member countries of the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB).