A/HRC/7/15 page 11 V. POVERTY REDUCTION AND SOCIAL INCLUSION A. Definition of social exclusion 44. The independent expert has enunciated the importance of seeing extreme poverty in all its multidimensionality; in practice, however, different countries have often given primary emphasis to one dimension, to which other dimensions can be added. For many poor developing countries, income poverty may appear to be most important. For others, human development poverty may be more important. For many developed countries, such as those in Europe, poverty is seen mostly in relevant terms, and social exclusion becomes their primary concern. Social exclusion is based on the concept of relative poverty. According to Townsend, “individuals, families and groups in the population can be said to be in poverty when they lack the resources to obtain the type of diet, participate in the activities and have the living conditions and amenities which are customary, or at least widely encouraged, or approved, in the societies to which they belong”.4 45. In his report, Joseph Wresinski observed that “the poor are pushed into areas where others rarely penetrate: inner city slums, the outskirts of towns and isolated rural dwellings. When they appear in the public eye, it is often because they have been made homeless in their own neighbourhoods. Geographically segregated and socially isolated, they are cut off from the cultural, political and civic life of the country”.5 Wresinski suggested that it is this exclusion that traps poor families and that any effort to reduce poverty cannot be successful unless it addresses the effects of exclusion. 46. In 1995, the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions defined social exclusion as “the process through which individuals or groups are wholly or partially excluded from full participation in the society within which they live”. 47. Tony Atkinson identified three key features of social exclusion:6 • Relativity: exclusion can only be judged by comparing the circumstances of some individuals (or groups or communities) relative to others, in a given place and at a given time • Agency: people are excluded by acts of some agents • Dynamics: the characteristics of exclusion (and its adverse effects) may only become apparent over time as an accumulated response 4 See, Townsend, P., Poverty in the United Kingdom (1979), Penguin Books, Harmondsworth. 5 Chronic Poverty and Lack of Basic Security: a report of the Economic and Social Council of France by Joseph Wresinski,1987, at www.atd-fourthworld.org/IMG/pdf/Wres_JO87en.pdf. 6 Atkinson quoted in Peter Saunders, Can Social Exclusion Provide a New Framework for Measuring Poverty?, SPRC Discussion Paper No. 127, October 2003, at http://www.sprc.unsw.edu.au/dp/DP127.pdf.