The South Asia Level People's Summit against Poverty (PSAP) was planned before the UN Millennium +5 Summit in order to prepare people's charter and declaration to be handed over to the heads of the member countries who will be attending the UN Millennium Summit on Millennium Development Goals which were adopted in 2000 by 189 countries.

It was expected that at the national level this People's Summit will unleash a spate of mobilised actions throughout the country in next three years to come. It will attempt to address the issues of abysmal living conditions of multitude of poorer sections: women, dalits, tribals, destitute, children, homeless, elderly, differently abled people, human rights violations, etc. It is charged with the realisation that there is a Constitutional mandate and various UN Covenants and Conventions, which back this effort up. The concept note noted that "We for long have witnessed the flagrant violation of the Constitutional provisions and the UN mandate. The time has come for the people of this country to assert their rights and exercise their responsibility in flowering, entrenching, and expanding of democracy".

It was agreed that this will be achieved through creating a broad platform where the people's movements, organisations, trade unions, VOs, CBOs, professionals, civil society, youth, the young and the old (except the people and groups that survive on dividing people on religious, ethnic, caste . grounds), in short, the entire society, join hands Against Poverty .

Aims of the South Asia Level People's Summit were:

• Create a common platform where all the people's movements, networks, organisations come together. And provide collective leadership and action.
• Provide opportunity to people from the poorer, marginalised and excluded sections of the society to raise their voices and contribute towards effective planning for sustained campaign to fight poverty and injustice.
• Highlight people's issues and concerns to seek the attention of the policy makers and other stakeholders at National level and to the heads of the states of member countries of the UN.
• Create awareness at the international level on issues and concerns of underprivileged and excluded masses particularly of the Asian countries.
• Motivate the member countries at the UN to adopt favourable policies and decisions towards South Asian countries.
• Align with the larger people's movements in different countries, regions and continents of the world. To create a new world order amenable to equality, and advancement of peace and justice.

It was decided South Asia level Summit will be organised in New Delhi , India on 3 rd and 4 th of September 2005, which coincides with the Latin American People's Summit in Sao Paulo and African People's Summit in Nairobi.

Eminent leaders addressed the gathering of over 15,000 people who had gathered from different parts of India and South Asia for the PSAP event. PSAP succeeded in presenting the demands of the people to the state. The charter of demands contained in the recommendations was read out in front of Arjun Singh, the Union Minister of Human Resource Development. Who promised his full support to take it up with his government?

People's Concert against Poverty (PCAP) on the evening of 3 rd Sept., 2005, an event supported through the GCAP processes received wide coverage in the electronic and print media. A R Rahman (who was joined by Kailash Kher, Indian Ocean and Envision in the People's Concert), the major attraction of the concert had created a Poverty Anthem for the event appealing for attention to the poverty of millions who have been deprived of the livelihoods and who are struggling for securing rights to socially equitable and ecologically sustainable livelihoods. The message went across the millions for realizing the millennium development goals and gearing up for fight against poverty.

The two-day event, besides PCAP, was laced with two Plenary (one inaugural {including the release of " Securing Rights: Citizens' Report on MDGs "}, the other valedictory) and 13 Parallel sessions on : right to education; right to health, water & sanitation, right to shelter & housing; right to food, livelihood, work & environmental justice; globalisation & privatization; human rights, human security, peace & justice in South Asia; transnational migration; adivasi rights; dalit rights; women's human rights; minority rights; child rights; and open space: differently abled, youth, elderly, media& poverty. NCAS, NFFPFW, Indian Social Institute, Wada Na ToDo Abhiyan, SANSAD, SAMARTHAN, NACDOR, NAFRE, NCDHR, NSWC, NMPS, CYSD, BBA, Ekta Parishad, Aashray Adhikar Abhiyan, APVVU, Oxfam, ActionAid, CARE, Water Aid spearheaded the organising of this event. This was funded by UN Millennium Campaign (Rs. 86,000), DANCHURCH (Rs. 7 lakhs), Concern Worldwide (9.5 lakhs), PACS (Rs. 10 lakhs), Novib (Rs. 10 lakhs), Oxfam (Rs. 20 lakhs), ActionAid International (Rs. 36 lakhs) = Rs. 93, 36,000. On 30 th Sept., 2005 we were invited by UNDP to share about the PSAP-PCAP 2005 in the presence of UN Ambassador for the MDGs , Asia - Pacific region, Ms. Erna Witoelar. Ms. Erna was very happy to note the quick progress made in this region with regard to the MDGs. We have had a PSAP review meeting on 7 th October 2005. We are planning to print the detailed report on the PSAP. The work is on, on this.