Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 4 2008 (IPS) – When the United Nations approved a set of development goals on poverty, health, gender empowerment, and sustainable environment back in September 2000, it laid down a deadline of 2015 to reach these targets.
Of the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) endorsed by the General Assembly, seven had a clear-cut deadline of 2015 as the target date.
But the eighth goal a North-South partnership for development, mostly underlying the obligations of Western industrial nations did not carry a rigid deadline.
The deadlines were meant for the poor, not for the rich, says one cynical Third World development expert, who has been tracking the status of MDGs since their inception.
The eighth goal (MDG8) calls for a substantial increase in development aid; reduction or cancellation of developing countries debts; removal of protectionist barriers for agricultural products; and access for developing nations to western markets.
A new U.N. study released Thursday, and which specifically focuses on MDG 8, says that while there has been progress on several counts, there are also important gaps in the delivery on the global commitments, mostly by Western donors.
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These gaps are primarily in the areas of aid, trade, debt relief, and access to new technologies and affordable essential medicines.
The weakening of the world economy and the steep rises in food and energy prices threaten to reverse some of the progress made in the various dimensions of human development, says the 52-page study titled Delivering on the Global Partnership for Achieving the MDGs .
The report was prepared by a task force consisting of representatives from more than 20 U.N. agencies, including the World Bank, the U.N. Development Programme (UNDP), the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and the Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA).
At a press conference to mark the launching of the new study, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told reporters: This report sounds a strong alarm.
The main message, he pointed out, is that while there has been progress on several counts, delivery on commitments made by member states has been deficient, and has fallen behind schedule.
We are already in the second half of our contest against poverty. We are running out of time, he warned.
In 2007, the only five countries to reach or exceed the U.N. target of allocating 0.7 percent of their gross national income (GNI) as official development assistance (ODA) were Denmark, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden.
Financial assistance to the 50 least developed countries (LDCs), the poorest of the world s poor, also fell short of the commitments made.
Besides the five high performing donors, only Belgium, Ireland and Britain have met the target of providing aid to LDCs, amounting to at least 0.15 to 0.20 percent of their GNI, while the average of most donors was 0.09 percent.
Last year, there was a shortfall of 10 billion dollars. Total net aid from the 22 donor countries of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) amounted to only 0.28 percent of their combined GNI, as opposed to the U.N. target of 0.7 percent.
If we are to meet the 2010 target set at the G-8 Summit in 2005, ODA will have to increase by 18 billion dollars a year. Of that, 7.3 billion dollars would have to go to Africa, Ban told reporters.
On trade, he said, the failure to conclude a development round constitutes the largest implementation gap. Even though aid for trade has increased in real terms, it has fallen as a percentage of ODA.
The world s poorest countries are still marginalised, and many have been hit hard by high food and energy prices, Ban said.
We need to move faster in reducing domestic and export subsidies on agriculture in developed countries, and in addressing other barriers to developing country exports and agricultural productivity growth, he added.
Asked how confident he was that MDG8 will meet the 2015 deadline, the lead author of the report, Rob Vos, told IPS: Whether the 2015 deadline will be met or not is essentially a matter of political will and priority among the global partners .
Regarding debt relief, he said, it has been shown that ambitious targets can be met. We are not entirely there yet but for the eligible countries a fair share did receive the substantial debt relief as promised.
It is clear that more needs to be done and efforts need to be accelerated.
What we have tried to do through the report is to make explicit to the global partners (governments of rich and poor countries alike, as well as the private sector) where they are failing to deliver on the commitments made and hopefully this will help to persuade the partners to follow through, said Vos, director of Development Policy and Analysis Division at DESA.
He also pointed out that MDG8 is the recognition that without international support and cooperation it may not be possible to achieve the other MDGs.
For instance, without a fair and equitable multilateral trading system, poorer countries will find difficulties to gain from opener trade in the form of higher growth and more poverty reduction.
Without adequate debt relief, governments of highly indebted countries will have great difficulties setting aside enough resources for education, health and so on to meet the other MDGs, he added.
Asked if it was fair to developing nations that only MDG8 does not have a rigid deadline compared to the other seven goals, Vos told IPS: In principle the same timeline applies for MDG8 .
The problem with the targets specified under MDG8, however, is that some are not very specific or quantified, he added.
This only partially has been improved upon in summits that took place after the Millennium Declaration of 2000, such as the Gleneagles G8 summit of 2005 where more specific targets (with a timeline) were set for ODA and additional debt relief.
Also for trade, the WTO had specific timelines to agree on the Doha Round, but those have been continuously shifted forward and now negotiations have stalled, Vos said.
For providing poor countries with affordable essential medicines and ensuring their access to new technologies, indeed no timeline was set nor are there specific agreements on verifiable targets, he admitted.
Nonetheless, he said, the report tries to make clear what kind of progress there has been on those scores as well as how to define more precisely what better access to medicines and technologies should mean in order for global partners to reflect on more effective actions to take.
The study released Thursday is also considered an important input to a high-level meeting on MDGs scheduled to take place in New York on Sep. 25 during the 63rd sessions of the U.N. General Assembly.
By asking world leaders to announce their specific plans and proposals, the high-level meeting should prepare the ground for a decisive conference on financing for development in Doha in November, the U.N. secretary-general said.
