A/HRC/5/3 page 7 three sets, that is, only those people who suffer from all the three dimensions of poverty. This would cover a much smaller number of poor people than that in the concept of the union of these three poverty sets. 10. Following this approach, extreme poverty can be regarded as a union of sets of people who are extremely income poor, extremely human development poor and extremely socially excluded. What will be considered as the most extreme form of poverty among them would be determined by social consensus, and thus may vary from one country to another. The internationally accepted definition of extreme poverty is that of having to live on an income of less than US$ 1 a day in terms of purchasing power parity. However, many developing countries have adopted a definition of extreme poverty which is at a much lower level. Similarly, human development poverty and social exclusion will have to be contextually defined, depending on the characteristics of each country’s social and economic structure. The definitions of poverty and extreme poverty mentioned above have two main advantages. First, they make it possible to establish indicators for these forms of poverty on the basis of existing data. Indeed, considerable progress has been made in the methodology of developing such indicators that not only captures the outcomes but also the processes, and not only the availability of goods and services, but also access to them. This progress in the development of indicators is very significant as it makes it possible to interpret results in terms of human rights deprivation that depend not only on the outcomes of activities, but also on the processes through which these outcomes are achieved. 11. The second advantage of this approach is its ability to enhance, in a political sense, a social consensus in a country that would enable the State and other social actors to accept the responsibility of adopting policies to eradicate poverty. Any society would recognize that poverty is something repugnant and unacceptable because it represents denial of human dignity. However, in order to make the eradication of poverty a human rights entitlement, there has to be a categorization of the social forces that would be prepared to make the necessary sacrifices by redistributing resources or by mobilizing special services and targeted programmes. The definition of extreme poverty may be sensitive to the requirement of developing a social consensus. However desirable it may be that the society take care of all the poor people in its country, it may be prudent to move step by step, to start by identifying the groups of people recognized as being extremely poor, i.e., those suffering from extreme forms of income poverty, human development poverty and social exclusion, to put in place appropriate policies to eradicate poverty and to mobilize institutional mechanisms to implement them. III. CORE CHARACTERISTICS OF POVERTY 12. One of the experts who participated in the above-mentioned workshop on human rights and extreme poverty suggested that poverty should be taken simply as a failure of “basic capabilities”, and extreme poverty as severe failure of “basic capabilities”. Income poverty has no independent role in this framework, where poverty should be taken as a deprivation of such elemental freedoms as freedom from hunger, from avoidable diseases and premature mortality and from the curse of ignorance and illiteracy. This has been the main approach of the expert’s report on the Draft Guidelines on a Human Rights Approach to Poverty Reduction Strategies prepared for OHCHR in 2002. Some intensive debates on this issue took place in the workshop, and since this question frequently arises in different international forums, it may be useful to consider these arguments carefully.