Rich must deliver aid promises: UN
Source: Agencies |
March 18, 2010, Thursday
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RICH nations have not kept their promises to help the world's poor and need to deliver an additional US$35 billion in aid annually starting this year to reach United Nations anti-poverty goals by 2015, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in a new UN report.
The UN chief said he is "cautiously optimistic" the goals can be achieved if developed countries keep the financial commitments they have already made and leaders of developing countries demonstrate the "political will" to reach the targets which world leaders adopted at the UN Millennium Summit in 2000.
The goals include cutting extreme poverty by half, ensuring universal primary school education for all children, halting the AIDS pandemic and reducing the proportion of people without access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation by half, all by 2015.
Ban has invited world leaders to a summit at UN headquarters on September 20-22, ahead of the General Assembly's annual ministerial meeting, to reinvigorate efforts to achieve the goals in the five years remaining.
The secretary-general said some successes have been attained by the poorest countries, citing one of the largest-ever reductions in measles deaths in sub-Saharan Africa between 1999 and 2004 and the fastest growth in primary school enrollment in the region within the past decade, from 58 to 74 percent, mainly through abolishing school fees.
In other successes, Malawi has doubled agricultural production. Cambodia halted and reversed the spread of HIV. Rwanda elected a majority of women to its parliament. In northeast Brazil, stunted growth, an indicator of child malnutrition, decreased from 22.2 percent in 1996 to 5.9 percent in 2006-2007, according to the report.
But Ban said progress has been very uneven. "We are off course because of unmet commitments, inadequate resources and a lack of focus and accountability," he said.
"The message is clear: with the right policies, adequate investment and international support, enormous challenges can be overcome," Ban told diplomats.
Developing countries need to do their utmost to improve governance, empower women and promote health, education and jobs, he said, while developed countries need to meet the financial promises they made at the Group of Eight summit in Gleneagles, Scotland, in 2000.
That summit agreed to increase yearly aid to developing countries, amounting to an extra US$50 billion by 2010 compared to 2004.
The UN chief said he is "cautiously optimistic" the goals can be achieved if developed countries keep the financial commitments they have already made and leaders of developing countries demonstrate the "political will" to reach the targets which world leaders adopted at the UN Millennium Summit in 2000.
The goals include cutting extreme poverty by half, ensuring universal primary school education for all children, halting the AIDS pandemic and reducing the proportion of people without access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation by half, all by 2015.
Ban has invited world leaders to a summit at UN headquarters on September 20-22, ahead of the General Assembly's annual ministerial meeting, to reinvigorate efforts to achieve the goals in the five years remaining.
The secretary-general said some successes have been attained by the poorest countries, citing one of the largest-ever reductions in measles deaths in sub-Saharan Africa between 1999 and 2004 and the fastest growth in primary school enrollment in the region within the past decade, from 58 to 74 percent, mainly through abolishing school fees.
In other successes, Malawi has doubled agricultural production. Cambodia halted and reversed the spread of HIV. Rwanda elected a majority of women to its parliament. In northeast Brazil, stunted growth, an indicator of child malnutrition, decreased from 22.2 percent in 1996 to 5.9 percent in 2006-2007, according to the report.
But Ban said progress has been very uneven. "We are off course because of unmet commitments, inadequate resources and a lack of focus and accountability," he said.
"The message is clear: with the right policies, adequate investment and international support, enormous challenges can be overcome," Ban told diplomats.
Developing countries need to do their utmost to improve governance, empower women and promote health, education and jobs, he said, while developed countries need to meet the financial promises they made at the Group of Eight summit in Gleneagles, Scotland, in 2000.
That summit agreed to increase yearly aid to developing countries, amounting to an extra US$50 billion by 2010 compared to 2004.
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