GENEVA — On June 13, China stressed the importance of eradicating poverty for promoting and protecting human rights, saying that it is a common challenge for the international community to effectively reduce and eliminate poverty.

Ma Zhaoxu, Permanent Representative of China to UN at Geneva, delivered a joint statement entitled “Join Hands to Reduce Poverty, Promote and Protect Human Rights” on behalf of more than 140 countries at the 35th Session of the Human Rights Council on June 13.

“More than 800 million people are still living in poverty across the world, we still have a daunting task before achieving the goal of global poverty reduction,” Ma noted.

He called on States to join hands and work together, make unremitting efforts to realize the goal of eradicating poverty at an early date, and build together a community of shared future for human beings that is free from poverty and that enjoys common sustainable development.

To this end, the senior Chinese diplomat proposed that States should first accelerate sustainable development, and poverty reduction and elimination, economic, social, cultural and environmental development and human rights protection should be addressed in a holistic and coordinated manner.

According to him, poverty reduction should be addressed in a holistic approach, and targeted poverty reduction and elimination should be taken as the basic strategy.

He also proposed that efforts should be made to ensure social equity and justice, and priority should be given to public well-being and its improvement, by putting in place and upgrading a social protection network that provide effective protection for vulnerable groups.

Urging international society to enhance their cooperation on poverty reduction, the Chinese official stressed that States should work together to maintain and develop an open world economy, build a new type of international poverty reduction partnership featuring win-win cooperation.

“Both South-North cooperation and South-South cooperation should be promoted, and the United Nations has an important role to play in global poverty reduction,” he told the Council.

The 35th Session of the UN Human Rights Council opened on June 6 at the Palais des Nations and will last until June 23.