By Donald Lee, president of ATD Fourth World International. This article comes from ATD Fourth World’s 2024 annual international report.

In 2024, international advocacy remained at the forefront of the International Movement ATD Fourth World’s efforts, driven by the slow progress of the United Nations’ goal of eliminating extreme poverty by 2030. ATD continued to work toward ensuring that governments focus on protecting human rights and ending poverty in all its forms, by placing people in extreme poverty at the heart of economic and social policies.

An important initiative during 2024 was the tenth biennial meeting of the International Committee for October 17 in Dakar, Senegal, which issued its Gorée Declaration, highlighting the right to legal identity.

The annual October 17 gatherings are vital to our efforts to raise awareness of the unacceptable poverty within our societies and communities.

In the spirit of October 17, we must strive to broaden and deepen the existing coalitions among people from all walks of life. We must reach out to an ever-widening circle of friends and allies in our communities and workplaces, as well as in universities and other public and private institutions, to spread awareness of the urgent need to end poverty in all its forms.

However, changing geopolitical relationships mean we can no longer rely on the support of UN Member States who have sponsored the October 17 commemoration at the United Nations for several decades. This may be a positive development, encouraging us to explore new partnerships and adopt more inclusive and innovative approaches to spreading the message of 17 October among all Member States and agencies. A broader coalition of Member States and other partners at the United Nations can only enhance the visibility of 17 October 17 at the international level.

In February, ATD Fourth World, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund jointly organised a conference in Washington, D.C., on “Addressing the Hidden Dimensions of Poverty in Knowledge and Policies”. This conference highlighted the results of the Hidden Dimensions of Poverty participatory research project, which is widely recognised as an important contribution to understanding poverty. The conference also introduced the Inclusive and Deliberative Elaboration and Evaluation of Policies (IDEEP) tool developed from the research in collaboration with Olivier De Schutter, UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights. Since the conference, ATD has been providing training and advice to the World Bank staff about the IDEEP tool and its implementation in the field.

I wish to thank our partners, activists, and teams who have worked tirelessly this past year to build a better world for all.