The observance traces back to October 17, 1987, when more than 100,000 people gathered at the Trocadéro in Paris to honor victims of poverty, hunger, and violence, at the initiative of Father Joseph Wresinski, founder of the International Movement ATD Fourth World. In 1992, four years after his death, the United Nations officially designated the date as the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty. The day highlights the suffering of hundreds of millions of people living in extreme poverty worldwide and calls for coordinated international action toward Sustainable Development Goal 1: eradicating poverty in all its forms. It also emphasizes the importance of involving people with lived experience of poverty in shaping the solutions that affect them, rather than imposing solutions from outside. The United Nations and anti-poverty organizations worldwide hold events that bring policymakers together with people who have direct experience of poverty, alongside awareness campaigns and policy discussions on social justice and social protection.