The President of the Republic considered this Friday, October 17th, that economic growth in Portugal does not have the desired impact on the lives of “almost two million” Portuguese people who remain poor or on the threshold of poverty.
Numa message published on the official website of the Presidency of the Republic on the Internetwhich marks the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa once again calls for collective mobilization to combat poverty as a “national goal”.
On this date, “associating himself with the United Nations agenda”, the President of the Republic “underlines that poverty is a reality that unfortunately remains close in Portugal”, the text reads.
“Despite a positive trajectory in economic terms, this has not had as much impact on the lives of almost two million compatriots as one would like, as they remain poor or on the threshold of poverty”points out the head of state.
Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa frames poverty as a condition that “involves more than a lack of financial resources”, which “promotes inequalities, limits access to housing, employment, education, health, culture, inhibits civic participation in decision-making”.
The President of the Republic adds that “poverty has a reach that lasts for generations”.
“Making the fight against poverty a national goal will be a challenge that everyone will have to mobilize”he argues, once again, at the end of this text.
The International Day for the Eradication of Poverty was established by a United Nations (UN) resolution in 1992.
Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa states that “Eradicating poverty in all its forms and places is the first of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations 2030 Agenda and one of the greatest global challenges, with 780 million people living below the poverty line around the world”.
Also a year ago, the head of state marked this date through a written message and called for “greater ambition” in the fight against poverty and “more empathy”, calling for mobilization against this reality “with a political and humanist strategy”.
In October 2024, the President of the Republic was the guest director of CAIS magazine and chose the fight against poverty as the main theme of this edition, asking that this challenge, and especially the fight against child poverty, be assumed as a “national aim” and faced “urgently and without illusions”.