Nicholas Freeland, Programme Director of RHVP, was invited to be part of the panel to launch The Chronic Poverty Report 2008-09: Escaping Poverty Traps in Bruxelles on 17 July 2008. The event was hosted by the European Working Group on Social Protection and Decent Work and was held at the International Press Centre. On the podium with Freeland were Andrew Shepherd, CPRC Director; Francoise Moreau, Head of Unit 'Forward looking studies and policy coherence', DG Development, European Commission; and Rudi Delarue, Director of the ILO Office for the European Union.

The First Chronic Poverty Report, published in 2004, highlighted the key processes by which many millions of people are trapped in chronic poverty. This second report, which draws on research carried out over three years by a wide range of organisations in the South and North, provides a policy response to the first. And for the 320 to 443 million people trapped in chronic poverty, it presents a set of policy solutions, with an emphasis on tackling exclusion, extending social protection and building assets.

The Bruxelles event, aimed at MEPs, Commission staff and the Press, followed a similar launch in the UK on 8 July 2008. Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP, UK Prime Minister, said of the report: "Once again, the Chronic Poverty Research Centre has issued a timely reminder that chronic poverty is a global emergency that we cannot afford to ignore. World leaders, NGOs, faith groups, the private sector and civil society as a whole must heed this warning as we work together to achieve the Millennium Development Goals by 2015. The report reminds us that alleviating chronic poverty is not merely a question of economics. It is a moral imperative".

To download the Chronic Poverty Report 2008-09: Escaping Poverty Traps, click here: www.chronicpoverty.org/pubfiles/CPR2_whole_report.pdf