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DEVELOPMENT: Hopes 'Fade' for Millennium Meet
By Sanjay Suri
LONDON, Aug 28 (IPS) - The United Nations summit next month on promoting the millennium development goals could end up delaying progress, a leading British charity says.
The UN summit has been called at its headquarters in New York Sep. 14 to 16 to review action on the millennium development goals (MDGs), a set of eight goals that include reduction of poverty and promotion of health and education. Many of the goals have a 2015 deadline, and the September summit is intended to review progress on the goals that were agreed in 2000.
A draft declaration for a UN text on the MDGs was produced Aug. 5 following proposals made earlier in June by China and other developing nations. ''Very few of those amendments were incorporated in the draft text,'' Peter Hardstaff from the World Development Movement (WDM) told IPS. ''The draft declaration makes pretty sad reading.''
The summit next month could pit the developed nations against an increasingly unified developing world. The June declaration was backed by China and the G77, which is the name for a grouping of 132 developing nations. China and the G77 have a population of 4.75 billion, which is 76 percent of the world population.
The review summit next month will now consider several amendments from the United States ''which sound like a complete reversal of even what is in the draft declaration,'' Hardstaff said. United States officials have been speaking of including UN reforms and action on terrorism in considerations at the summit.
''The UN has produced a text that is largely an acceptance of the free market deregulation approach,'' Hardstaff said. ''It is sad that the UN itself is producing drafts which show that it is failing to think outside the box, and failing to include the developing countries' views sufficiently. And that could get weakened further because of the U.S. position.''
This was expected to be a summit on the MDGs ''to which all the governments have signed, and to agree necessary action,'' he said. ''And it is turning into a horse-trading exercise. Whatever happens, achievement of the MDGs is becoming a bargaining chip.''
The WDM has compared the submission of the G77 and the draft declaration to show how the draft has watered down the demands of the developing countries. It said that in their June submission the G77 and China want the declaration:
- To reject any conditions attached to the provision of development assistance. The Aug. 5 draft declaration contains no reference to removing any of the conditions that are currently attached to aid, loans and debt relief.
- To state that the focus of the WTO Doha Round of negotiations should be on ensuring that the interests of developing countries are fully reflected. The G77 and China specifically note reaching the 2006 deadline for negotiations should not take precedence over an outcome which reflects the interests of developing countries. In contrast the subsequent draft declaration prioritises hitting the 2006 deadline, and makes no reference to it reflecting the interests of developing countries.
- To reaffirm the commitment of developed countries to provide 0.7 per cent of their national incomes in aid. The draft declaration only ''invites'' developed countries ''to establish timetables in order to achieve the target of 0.7 per cent.''
- To specify that developing countries should have the policy space to formulate development strategies. The draft declaration makes no reference to protecting policy space.
- To emphasise the need to provide an immediate solution to the question of commodities and stress the need for more effective international action to address the problems of weak and volatile commodity prices. In reference to Africa, the draft declaration focuses on 'market-based' arrangements with the private sector for addressing the problem of commodity prices, rather than the intergovernmental arrangement called for by the G77 and China.
- To make a reference to commitments made at the UN World Summit on Sustainable Development held in Johannesburg in 2002. The draft declaration makes no reference to the summit at all. (END)
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