[UN Development] Global Anti-Poverty Campaign Hangs in the Balance

From the Inter Press Service News Agency

UNITED NATIONS, Aug 16 (IPS) - An overemphasis on Security Council reform is undermining efforts to help the world's one billion people escape poverty, disease and illiteracy, warns the top official of the U.N.'s development agency.

”I know the Security Council reforms issues are very tough,” Kemal Dervis, the newly-appointed administrator of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), told reporters Tuesday. ”But we shouldn't get all the attention hijacked only by that.”

His cautionary remarks came just a few weeks ahead of the World Summit, which is expected to be attended by more than 170 heads of state. The Sep. 14-16 gathering is intended to take stock of progress towards the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

These goals include a 50 percent reduction in hunger and poverty; universal primary education; reduction in child mortality by two-thirds, cutbacks in maternal mortality by three-quarters, the promotion of gender equality; and the reversal of the spread of HIV/AIDS and other deadly diseases, all by 2015.

But since the release of Secretary-General Kofi Annan's report on the need for United Nations reforms in March this year, titled ”In Larger Freedom”, the 191-member world body has been deadlocked over the question of how to expand the 15 seats on the Security Council and bring about management changes. Annan wanted member nations to resolve this issue before the Summit, but so far they have failed to reach a consensus.

Dervis, a former finance minister of Turkey and senior World Bank official, is the first UNDP chief from a developing country. His nomination was unanimously endorsed by the U.N. General Assembly last month.

”I hope the participants (of the Summit) will reaffirm their commitment to focus on development policy by not letting the policy agenda to be sidelined,” Dervis said a day after taking charge of the UNDP, which assists more than 160 countries in executing development programmes.

Like Dervis, many diplomats representing developing nations are equally concerned about the outcome of the Summit with regard to addressing critical economic and social issues.

”Trade, debt, science and technology, market access and aid should take priority over reform,” said Ambassador Stafford Neil of Jamaica, who is also chairman of the 132- member Group of 77, a political bloc in the world body that represents the interests of the developing nations.

Neil criticised the draft outcome document for the Summit, saying that the proposed declaration focuses more on the creation of new institutional and management reforms than addressing economic and trade issues.

Noting that many rich nations have failed to fulfill their pledges of financial assistance to poor countries for development, Dervis expressed his disappointment with the role of the ”the most fortunate countries.”

”Development needs resources. If the financial resources are not made available for the pursuit of the MDGs, the poverty reduction would not happen,” he said. ”The amount needed for development assistance is so small. Most rich countries can afford it.”

Despite repeated pledges by rich nations, currently only five countries have managed to reach the target of 0.7 percent of their gross domestic product (GDP) for development assistance. They are Denmark, Luxemburg, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden. Five others -- Britain, Belgium, Finland, France and Spain -- have pledged to do so by 2015.

The United States, which is pressing hard for management reforms, spends only 0.16 percent of its GDP on international development aid.

In a letter to his UNDP colleagues, Dervis said he would use his new position to urge donors to keep their promises, and that he would advocate for greater funding for development to the help the poorest countries in Africa and elsewhere.

”It is a moral duty to help the one billion human beings who are in danger of being left behind,” he said, ”and the failed and falling states where many of these people live pose a serious challenge to the entire international system, since borders cannot contain the instability, chaos and violence they engender.”

Recently, Annan, who chose Dervis to lead the world body's development programme, warned the international community against the failure to achieve the MDGs.

”We have a once-in-a-generation chance to bring about historic fundamental change,” he said. ”But it will depend on the will of governments.”