Presentation

The decision to treat extreme poverty and social exclusion as a denial of human rights has prompted a number of initiatives in this area since 1985, culminating, in 1991, in a colloquy entitled: "Towards Greater Social Justice in Europe: the Challenge of Marginalisation and Poverty".

Since then, the Parliamentary Assembly and the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of Europe have also played their part, with the Charleroi Declaration of 5-7 February 1992 made by the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of Europe on the theme "The exclusion of poverty through citizenship" and the Parliamentary Assembly’s Recommendation 1355 (1998) on "Fighting social exclusion and strengthening social cohesion in Europe".

In 1993, the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe took the decision to launch the Project on Human Dignity and Social Exclusion (HDSE Project) and placed it under the authority of the Steering Committee on Social Policy (CDPS).

In order to set the guidelines of this first pan-European initiative on human dignity and social exclusion, the CDPS commissioned a report to Mr Hugh Frazer, Director of the Combat Poverty Agency in Ireland. Further to the recommendations of this Report, the Council of Europe set itself a threefold objective:

· to have access to quantitative and qualitative information about social exclusion and thus, gain a general picture of exclusion on a pan-European scale;

· to support the initiatives taken in this area by governments and civil society and increase political awareness on social exclusion;

· to define the principles for action against social exclusion.

It was clear from the beginning that the very subject matter itself of the Project called for partnership between the many different forces within society concerned by the fight against poverty and social exclusion, including the support of excluded people themselves.

The HDSE Project was therefore to be carried out in co-operation with other international organisations, governments, non-governmental organisations, workers and employers, firms, and foundations.

At the same time, it was recognised that the Project could not be carried out within the limited resources of the Council of Europe budget. The implementation of the Project would therefore not have been possible without the financial support of a number of partners: the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung and the Caisse des dépôts et de consignations. The governments of the Czech Republic, Finland and France also provided invaluable additional contributions.

The stages of the HDSE Project

The partners of the HDSE Project

REPORT “Specific recommendations as to how a European report on poverty and social exclusion might be carried out” - by HUGH FRAZER, Director of the Combat Poverty Agency, Dublin (Ireland)