E/CN.4/1999/48 page 11 compatible with development. The distinguishing criterion should be whether the processes of growth are such that they do not negatively affect civil and political rights and give better protection in terms of economic, social and cultural rights to the most vulnerable and impoverished groups. II. UNITED NATIONS ACTION TO ERADICATE EXTREME POVERTY 37. The world conferences convened by the United Nations during the 1990s have focused on human needs and concluded that development should be sustainable and that priority should be given to the eradication of poverty. 38. At the World Summit for Social Development, held in Copenhagen in 1995, 117 heads of State and Government and the representatives of 186 countries stated, in the Copenhagen Declaration on Social Development and Programme of Action of the World Summit for Social Development (A/CONF.166/9, chap. I), that the eradication of poverty was an ethical, social, political and economic imperative of mankind. The Copenhagen Declaration and Programme of Action provides the substantive framework for the current drive for eradicating poverty and for planning the efforts of the United Nations system in support of the first United Nations Decade for the Eradication of Poverty. 39. The Summit also set specific targets, drew up plans and implemented programmes. Three years later, 78 countries have national plans to combat poverty or have included poverty reduction in broader national development plans. 40. In resolution 51/178, the General Assembly expressed its solidarity with people living in poverty in all countries and reaffirmed that the satisfaction of basic human needs was an essential element of poverty eradication, those needs being closely interrelated and comprising nutrition, health, water and sanitation, education, employment, housing and participation in cultural and social rights. Along the same lines, the Assembly reaffirmed in resolution 52/193 of 1997 that the causes of poverty should be addressed in the context of sectoral strategies, such as those on environment, food security, population, migration, health, shelter, human resources development, including education, fresh water (clean water and sanitation), rural development, productive employment, and the specific needs of disadvantaged and vulnerable groups, in such a way as to increase opportunities and choices of people living in poverty and enable them to build their strengths and assets so as to achieve social and economic integration. 41. As a result, poverty eradication has become one of the principal areas of concentration throughout the United Nations system. Both the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the World Bank have made poverty reduction their predominant objective. Thus, the Human Development Report 1997 and the UNDP Poverty Report 1998, 1 Overcoming Human Poverty (Vaincre la pauvreté humaine), were entirely devoted to eradication of poverty. The same applies for the Report on the World Social Situation 1997 and the Trade and Development Report 1997. 42. The World Bank believes that creating the conditions for the attainment of human rights is a central and irreducible goal of development. By placing