DEVELOPMENT: UNDP Says Urgent Action Needed to Meet Poverty Reduction Goals

By Gustavo Capdevila Reprint | | Print |

Gustavo Capdevila

GENEVA, Jul 8 2003 (IPS) - The low level of development aid from the industrialised North and the obstacles that rich countries maintain against farm products from the South, as well as continuing discrimination against women in many parts of the world, are key factors undermining progress towards the aim of halving global poverty by 2015, according to the UNDP’s annual human development report.

Cutting poverty to half of the 1990 level and other Millenium Development Goals will not be met at the current pace, said Sakiko Fukuda-Parr, author of the Human Development Report 2003, released Tuesday by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

The report warns that in 59 countries, the objectives adopted at the U.N. Millenium Summit in 2000 will not be met unless urgent action is taken.

In its description of the current state of human development, the UNDP underlines the devastating consequences of the decade of the 1990s, when a kind of development crisis was seen, with a marked difference between countries of the South that posted dynamic growth and those that remained stagnant, Fukuda-Parr told IPS.

Twenty-one of the 67 countries for which statistics were gathered saw a slump in their human development indices in the 1990s, while 54 registered negative growth rates, school enrollment dropped in 12, infant mortality rose in 14, and poverty increased in 37.

The proportion of people living on less than a dollar a day has only been slightly reduced due to improvements seen mainly in China, which has had remarkable success on that front, said Fukuda-Parr.

The report adds that political and financial problems have stood in the way of progress towards a number of the Millenium Goals assumed by global leaders with the aim of reducing the high levels of poverty in the world.

According to the report, the objectives are not unrealistic, but on the contrary are achievable because the technology, know-how and historical experience, as well as the resources, needed to reach them exist.

The UNDP says the Millenium Goals are also tools for the populations of poor countries to make demands on their leaders, and for poor nations to make demands on rich nations, and on the world in general.

Effective development assistance by rich nations and gender equality are two basic requisites for overcoming the world’s current acute development crisis, and for meeting the poverty reduction targets set by the governments, says the UNDP report.

A number of studies clearly show that the dynamic of human development depends largely on equality between men and women, noted Fukuda-Parr. Educated women, for example, contribute much more to the health and education of their children, and their participation in decision-making, especially in the home, is very important.

With respect to the other requisite, the responsibility of rich countries in the fight against poverty, she commented to IPS that the pledge by the European Union (EU) nations to increase their development aid by 16 billion dollars as of 2006 was a crucial step forward.

Nevertheless, that contribution will only raise EU official development aid from 0.22 to 0.25 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), still a far cry from the industrialised countries’ commitment of 0.70 percent.

When the Millenium Goals were adopted in 2000, it was estimated that 100 billion dollars were needed to cut poverty in half on 1990 levels by 2015 and to curb the spread of HIV, the AIDS virus.

The UNDP report also stresses the need for rich countries to live up to their commitment to remove the barriers that distort developing countries’ trade.

In particular, Fukuda-Parr mentioned the industrialised countries’ practice of subsidising a large part of their agricultural production and exports – a policy that she said does great harm to poor countries.

She also told IPS that she was disappointed in the World Trade Organisation’s failure to come up with a solution to the problem of access to affordable medicines by people in the developing world, despite the mandate to that end adopted by the last ministerial conference of the 146-member WTO.

The UNDP suggests that rich countries present an annual report on the progress made by their governments with respect to meeting the poverty reduction commitments assumed by the world’s leaders.

Besides the eradication of extreme poverty and hunger, the U.N. Millenium Goals are aimed at achieving universal primary education, reducing infant mortality, improving maternal health, creating a non-discriminatory multilateral trading and financial system, ensuring environmentally sustainable development, checking the spread of HIV/AIDS, and guaranteeing gender equality and access to clean water.

Fukuda-Parr said the drop in human development indices seen in the 1990s was unprecedented, and was due to the economic downturn, as well as the AIDS epidemic.

The UNDP report also underscores the importance of public sector action as a necessary condition for market-led economic growth.

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+ Human Development Report 2003 (http://www.undp.org/hdr2003)