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| Wednesday, 19 January 2005 |
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UN unveils action plan to save millions of lives UNITED NATIONS, Tuesday (Reuters) More than 500 million people can escape abject poverty, 250 million people will no longer go to bed hungry and 30 million children can be saved if rich countries double development aid over the next 10 years to $195 billion, a new U.N.-sponsored report said. The 3,000-word plan written by 265 experts says the money should be spent on both long-term projects and quick fixes, such as supplying mosquito bed nets and creating free school lunch programs. These would enable countries to meet global goals to combat poverty, hunger and disease that all nations promised at a U.N. summit in 2000. "The goals are not utopian. They are eminently achievable," said U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan in accepting the report from Jeffrey Sachs, a Columbia University professor and lead author of the survey, labeled as the most comprehensive ever on global poverty. The Millennium Development Goals, agreed on by all nations in 2000, include halving extreme poverty and hunger for at least 1 billion people living on $1 a day, reversing the spread of AIDS and malaria and providing basic education by 2015. The report, "Investing in Development," commissioned by Annan, is to be presented to the Group of Eight countries meeting in July and to world leaders in September at the U.N. General Assembly, which is expected to set a global development agenda. Government aid from rich countries should amount to $135 billion in 2003, rising to $195 billion in 2015 or about 0.54 percent of these nations' GNP, about twice the current level to reach the Millennium goals, the report said. World leaders have agreed on 0.7 percent of GNP for development aid for the Millennium goals and other projects. |
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