UN: Step up efforts to attain MDG targets by 2015

Source: The Chronicle
Ban Ki-moon, UN Secretary General
By:  Masahudu Ankiilu Kunateh

The United Nations (UN) Secretary-General, Ban Kimoon has urged developing nations to step up efforts to reach the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) targets by the 2015 deadline.

He observed that unlocking the potential of agriculture and the rural sector is a key to advancement in low-income countries, and all developing countries need to explore new ways to ensure sustainable growth and manage environmental conditions.

Mr. Ban Kimoon made this known at the launch of the UN’s MDG Gap Task Force report in New York, USA, over the weekend. The Secretary-General called for increased coverage by social insurance programmes, application of a human rights and gender equality framework and good governance.
The report further sites that macroeconomic policies need to support job creation as well as economic growth “accelerating progress towards the MDGs”.

On affordable access to medicines, the report stated that essential medicines are available in only 42 per cent of public sector facilities in developing countries, and countries such as India have stepped in by producing low-cost generic drugs.

According to the UN report, “The case of India illustrates how intellectual property policy can be used to increase access to affordable HIV medicines in developing countries. The Indian pharmaceutical industry is highly export-oriented and, by utilizing the transition period, became a major supplier of generic medicine and low-cost anti-retrovirals (ARVs) to developing countries.”

The report was written by the UN Secretary-General’s MDG Gap Task Force, which brought together more than 20 UN agencies, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the World Bank and the World Trade Organization (WTO).

At the Millennium Summit in 2000, world leaders pledged to “create an environment at the national and global levels conducive to development and to the elimination of poverty.” At an MDG Summit in September 2010, world leaders re-committed to strengthening the global partnership to “keep the promises.” With only four more years until the target year, the report told world leaders that it is “time to deliver.”

The report argued that due to economic difficulties since the 2008 financial meltdown, many developing countries need to channel an additional 1.5 per cent of their gross domestic product (GDP) to achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)

Although support from donors has seen an increase since the inauguration of the MDGs in the year 2000, it is falling short of agreed targets according to the UN report which “challenges the international community and other stakeholders to intensify their efforts to realize the potential of the global partnership for development.”

The report indicated that official development assistance (ODA) from traditional donors has more than doubled since 2000, reaching a record $129 billion in 2010. But the 2010 total still falls $21 billion short of commitments made in 2005, at the G8 Summit in Gleneagles, and is less than half of the total needed to fulfill the longstanding target of 0.7 per cent of gross national income of traditional donors.  Consequently, increased commitments from traditional donors are urgently required, the report indicated.

Agreements at the 2011 UN conference on the 48 Least Developed Countries (LDCs) held in Istanbul, Turkey, to step up market-opening and capacity-building measures offer one hopeful alternative to rapid advancement through trade, a traditional means by which nations lift themselves out of poverty especially in light of the lack of substantial improvements in market access of LDC exports since 2004.

The UN report also warned against trade protectionism in response to slow economic growth, as a self defeating measure that would also penalize poor countries.

Removal of the burden of unsustainable debt from many poor countries is another area in which the international environment has improved since 2000. But recent financial turmoil has caused some backsliding. 19 developing countries are sited as being in debt distress or at high risk, including eight that earlier benefited from debt relief.

MDG 8, covering the international partnership, aims to create an enabling environment for poverty eradication through a fair and open trading system, substantial increase in development assistance, poor-country debt relief and improved terms of access of the developing world to medicines and technology. (Goals 1 – 7 target hunger, extreme poverty, disease, environmental degradation and obstacles to the advancement of women and to achieving universal primary education).