Overcoming Extreme Poverty

Following the exchange of ideas launched during the February 2025 consultation on the main theme for 2026 and 2027, we now invite you to share your views on the theme for October 17, 2026. This will include both a main theme, intended to run for three years (until 2028), and a sub-theme for this year.

I am the coordinator and founding member of the NGO, MEABF Mutuelle de Micro-Entrepreneurs pour l’Amour du Bien-Être Familial (Mutual Organisation of Micro-Entrepreneurs for Family Well-Being), based in Goma, Democratic Republic of the Congo.

In this Letter to Friends around the World, we are pleased to share more true stories from people making a difference. They allow us once again to marvel at what each of us, starting from our own reality and sensitivity, can do to build a world free of extreme poverty.

Gender-based discrimination remains a widespread practice in Senegal and around the world. Relations between men and women are marked by numerous inequalities: access to land, to production resources (water, animal reproductive materials, plant protection products, and other agricultural inputs), to credit, education, training, and information.

October 17 is a day of togetherness and hope. On this day, our global family of “we the peoples”, children and adults, the young and the elderly in all our beautiful diversity from every corner of our planet — from tiny villages to big cities, will gather together. On this day we remember and honour the millions of lives that have been lost because of extreme poverty and to pay tribute to the living — for the courage, determination and succeeding to stay alive despite everything working against people in poverty.

We are pleased to announce the appointment of 6 new members to the International Committee for October 17. The Committee was established in 2008 to promote and support the observance of the World Day for Overcoming Extreme Poverty, observed on October 17th each year, recognised as the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty by the United Nations.

In serving as a bridge between the Forum members and the United Nations, we do our best to make sure that your voices are heard at the highest levels and that the theme of the global commemoration is the one chosen by you. The process is not always easy but rest assured that slowly but surely, the political leaders are starting to talk about the issues you want to talk about.

Every year, on 17 October, there is an international mobilisation to amplify the voices of those who fight daily against poverty. The theme chosen for this day does not come from a small committee, but from hundreds of individuals around the world, including people living in poverty.