Carthage — A forum on poverty held by the Presidency of the Republic in collaboration with the United Nations Organisation started works Monday morning in Carthage.

In his opening address, Caretaker President Moncef Marzouki likens poverty to deprivation of access to information, knowledge, health care and liberties, saying that "poverty is a concept getting more and more complicated, from which the need of a general mobilisation to fight against this phenomenon that is eating away our institutions."

Dr. mohammed belhocine, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) representative in Tunisia, said for his part that the experience throughout the world, shows that the benefits of economic growth do not automatically find expression in an improvement of people's life as we often believe .

A UNDP report published in 2011 relating to the challenges facing Arab development, outpoints that in Tunisia, the inequalities of access notably to employment, social coverage and decent income, had triggered off the Tunisian revolution and keep on being the focus of the transitional process.

Two major subjects have been discussed during the morning session, namely "Assessing Poverty" and "Targetting Social Plans and Assessing their Impact."