DEVELOPMENT: Belgium Urges Rich To Meet Aid Pledges

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

José Rampal*

ROME, Feb 17 2005 (IPS) - Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt has urged industrialised countries to allocate promised money for international development cooperation.

The United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution 35 years ago calling upon developed countries to provide 0.7 percent of their Gross National Income (GNI) for official development assistance (ODA). The time has come to honour that commitment, Verhofstadt told a global gathering of ministers of finance, agriculture and rural development called by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), a specialised UN agency.

Denmark, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden are still the only countries to meet the ODA target.

In nominal terms, ODA rose from 58.3 billion dollars in 2002 to 69 billion dollars in 2003, the last year for which reliable figures are available. But about 7.9 billion of the 10.7 billion dollar increase was due to the combined effects of inflation and the fall in the external value of the dollar.

The ODA average for 23 nations in the Development Assistance Committee of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD, a grouping of industrialised nations) rose to 0.25 percent in 2003, up from 0.23 percent in 2002 and 0.22 percent in 2001. But this is still well short of the average of 0.33 percent achieved in 1980-92.

The Belgian Prime Minister told the IFAD meeting in Rome Wednesday that he would put the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and in particular poverty in Africa “amongst the top priorities of the new strategic agenda of Europe and the United States.” The new strategic agenda will be one of the central themes of U.S. President George W. Bush’s visit to Brussels next week.

”Poverty in Africa is a shame for rich countries,” he said at a joint press conference with Ugandan President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, who inaugurated the two-day annual session of the governing council of IFAD.

Museveni praised IFAD for its “commendable job” in Uganda and in other countries. IFAD is not only helping increase production in rural areas but is also providing assistance in storage, transportation, processing and marketing of agricultural goods. ”This is the way to end hunger, famine and poverty,” Museveni said.

”When somebody buys what you produce, he is assisting you to banish hunger, famine and poverty for ever,” he said. “If we produce maize but nobody buys it, we may, in the short run, feed ourselves. However, without incomes the family members may have to shift to the towns to look for jobs. Since subsistence farming is based on family labour, it will mean food insecurity instead of food security.”

Until recently many of the agricultural crops produced by Uganda except tea and sugar were not being processed. But the country is now on the verge of achieving a breakthrough in a number of areas, Musevini said.

In his keynote address to government representatives from 163 countries, Verhofstadt highlighted the close cooperation between IFAD and the Belgium Survival Fund over the last 22 years. He recalled that Belgium’s King Baudouin had announced the creation of the Fund – then named the Third World Survival Fund – in an address to the seventh session of the IFAD Governing Council in 1983.

The Fund has been supporting projects in Uganda. Belgium is providing support also to the UWESO (Uganda Women’s Effort to Save Orphans) project established by Uganda’s First Lady.

Verhofstadt expressed regret that the challenges faced back in 1983 still loom as large as ever. The number of children dying every year from starvation has increased from nine to 11 million. The number of people suffering from under-nourishment has gone up from 500 to 800 million.

In a separate statement, IFAD president Lennart Båge said that as the only international organisation dedicated to eradicating poverty in rural areas of the developing world, IFAD has a unique ability “to reach the unreached and amplify the voice of the voiceless.” Yet only one-third of one percent of official development assistance is channelled through IFAD.

With an eye on a fresh round of replenishment of IFAD funds, expected to be concluded by the end of the year, Båge called for more money to be placed at IFAD’s disposal.

The IFAD governing council elected Båge Feb. 16 to lead the organisation for the next four years. Båge began his first four-year term in April 2001. Prior to his appointment at IFAD, he headed Sweden’s Department for International Development Cooperation. He also served as an ambassador and assistant under-secretary for the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

IFAD says it is supporting some 200 ongoing rural poverty eradication programmes and projects worth 6.5 billion dollars. It has invested almost 3 billion dollars in these initiatives. Once completed, these programmes will help more than 100 million rural poor achieve better lives for themselves and their families, says IFAD spokesperson Farhana Haque Rahman.

*José Rampal is a journalist specialising in international development cooperation.