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Contributions from
the Column
Facts and trends
“Relief demands the highest professional standard”
53 journalists killed
More money for
population issues
Sudanese rebel leader
John Garang becomes vice president
An action plan for the millennium goals
World Bank: Wolfensohn steps down
Malloch Brown new
chef de cabinet at UN
02/2005
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[ UN Millennium Project ]
An action plan for the millennium goals
Bold measures are called for if the world is to achieve the eight UN millennium goals by the 2015 deadline. Poor nations must draw up detailed development strategies to reach the mutually agreed aims. Rich countries must support them, at the same time increasing aid spending and improving its efficiency. These are the recommendations of the so-called United Nations Millennium Project outlined in the final report that lead author Jeffrey Sachs presented to Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary-General, in mid-January. Annan had commissioned the project in 2002. More than 200 development experts have been working on the document entitled “A Practical Plan to Achieve the Millennium Development Goals”.
The document with more than 300 pages lists four reasons why many countries are unlikely to achieve the goals if current trends continue. These are:
– shortcomings in governance with negative impacts on the rule of law or the economy;
– levels of poverty that have grown so high as to prevent necessary investment;
– exclusion of sections of the population, resulting in huge differences in income; and
– neglect of certain policy areas with consequences for the millennium goals.
By next year, poor nations should produce detailed strategies showing how they expect to achieve the goals by 2015. Wherever available, existing poverty reduction strategy papers should be used as a starting point.
The report expresses sharp criticism of donor countries. Their development aid places too little emphasis on the millennium goals, it is stated. According to the report, multilateral and bilateral donors have failed to encourage partner countries to make the MDGs the objective of their policies. Aid is generally said to be too short-term in character and its flows are considered unreliable and highly unpredictable for the receiving countries and it is, accordingly, hardly being used efficiently enough. The level of debt relief is based on arbitrary indicators such as export earnings, and not on MDG-requirements.
The report recommends liberating aid from geo-political considerations and drafting flexible long-term strategies for cooperation with target countries. Individual donors should identify at least a dozen countries that, given extra aid, could make great strides towards achieving the goals (fast-track countries). Independent experts should evaluate the extent to which donors contribute to the goals and make their conclusions freely available.
The report also deals with the question of how much money is needed to achieve the millennium goals. It estimates that after allowance has been made for the developing countries’ own contributions, 135 billion US dollars will be needed next year, rising to 195 billion US dollars in 2015, primarily in Africa. To close this gap, the advanced countries must more than double the proportion of GDP they spend on development aid, from an average of 0.25 per cent at present to 0.54 per cent by 2015. However, because their calculations apply only to the millennium goals, the authors suggest that aid should be lifted immediately to 0.7 percent to achieve the millennium goals and go on with other development aid at the same time. (ell)
On the net:
http://unmp.forumone.com
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