Can the UN summit on poverty deliver?

by Sarah Hiddleston

The UN summit risks delivering worse prospects for action on global poverty than before the G8, wiping out the commitments made at Gleneagles.

Today, more than 170 of the world's leaders will meet at the United Nations in New York to address a far-reaching agenda, the outcome of which will have a significant impact on the lives of millions of the world's poor.

Alongside discussions on peace, security, human rights, and UN reform, the summit will assess progress and recommend action on a series of eight promises made in 2000 to halve poverty, tackle sickness, and combat environmental degradation by 2015.

These commitments, known as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), reflected international consensus that poverty in an increasingly prosperous world economy was unacceptable. These provided measurable targets, albeit imperfect, to track progress. For the first time, rich countries and international financial institutions such as the World Bank and the IMF were to be held accountable not just for their processes but in terms of outcomes.

Reports from international aid agencies and the Human Development report just released by the UNDP indicate that progress is "slow," if not "dismal." Life expectancy has overall increased by two years, 130 million have been removed from abject poverty, and 30 million extra children put in school.

However, the first target to achieve equal access to primary education for girls and boys has been missed in over 70 countries. As an indicator for the achievements of other goals, the prospects are not promising.

Worsening poverty

Many of the MDGs will not be met in UN member-states by 2015. None of them will be met in Africa. Poverty has stagnated or worsened in every region outside Asia. In Africa, there are over 100 million more people living in poverty than there were in 1990.

Even within success stories, such as India, a decline in income poverty has not been matched by human development. The figures were poor for child mortality and malnutrition as well as gender parity.

The number of people suffering from hunger has increased since 1997; over 150 million children in developing nations are underweight.

The target to eradicate extreme hunger is projected to be missed in Africa, and South and West Asia. On current trends, Africa, and South and East Asia will fail to achieve universal primary education by 2015. By the target date, 75 million children in over 80 countries are projected to remain out of school.

On current trends, the child mortality target will be missed in every region except East Asia and Latin America. In Africa, life expectancy has fallen by 15 years since 1990, largely due to HIV and AIDS.

According to the UNDP report, if these goals are to be realised the UN cannot go about "business as usual." "This year marks a crossroads" if we are to see the next 10 years as "the decade of development."

With the MDGs already behind target, recent drafts of the outcome document currently do not acknowledge change in direction necessary to get the world back on track. According to the international charity ActionAid, pre-summit negotiations have diluted some clear, time-bound commitments on increasing aid, improving the quality of aid, cancelling unsustainable debt, tackling HIV and AIDS, and expanding access to health and education.

Examples include: the removal of timetables to reach the target for rich countries to give 0.7 per cent of their GDP in aid by 2015; the loss of a plan for debt reduction for countries outside the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries initiative (HIPC), based on an appraisal of their MDG financing requirements; the loss of full funding for universal access to AIDS treatment by 2010 set out in the G8 communique and Africa Action Plan in Gleneagles; the loss of provisions for free basic education and full funding of the education Fast Track Initiative made at the G8.

These damaging revisions have come about chiefly through the aggressive lobbying of the U.S. administration backed in some areas by some other rich nations such as Australia and Japan. More worryingly, the US has sought to overturn the international agreements on poverty reductions made in 2002 at Monterrey and delete the 35 references to the MDGs altogether.

Though compromise wording has now been accepted, there remain 250 changes in the document that need to be negotiated.

Care and treatment

The US has adopted a similar approach to other multilateral processes and agreements, by seeking to strip out references on climate change and the Kyoto Protocol, the International Criminal Court, and the U.N. Convention Against Corruption.

With northern countries undercutting development goals, it is increasingly important that champions from developing countries emerge advocating their retention within the document. In particular, the emerging world economies such as India could make or break the case for inclusion of already stated international commitments. And, largely, it is within their interest to ensure inclusion.

The HIV/AIDS commitments, for example, which were agreed at the G8 and included getting "as close as possible to universal access to care and treatment for all who need it by 2010," currently lack a champion outside the UK. Should it choose to back the treatment target, India would be presented with an opportunity to fulfil its domestic need for effective prevention (the provision of treatment supports prevention by reducing the amount of HIV in the body, making it harder to pass the virus on) and also lead provision of treatment on an international scale.

A world that intends to deliver universal treatment needs a producer. India is one of the few countries with the scientific and manufacturing capacity to produce affordable cheap generic drugs for distribution to a world market. A win-win situation presents itself to Indian negotiators: a world that commits itself to universal treatment will be healthier, more productive, and more equitable.

It will also be one in which Indian economic and political interests are well served by the necessary scale up of generic production.

The UN summit risks delivering worse prospects for action on global poverty than before the G8, wiping out the commitments made at Gleneagles and shattering the hopes of the millions of people who have campaigned across the world as part of the Global Call to Action Against Poverty (GCAP).

Without consolidating the gains already made on aid and debt cancellation, further commitments to end donor and World Bank and IMF conditionalities, significant progress on trade justice and ending conflict, stocktaking on reasons for lack of progress, and an action plan to resuscitate the MDGs, the current generation of politicians will risk taking a step backward in the face of opportunity, turning their backs on the poorest.

(Courtesy -'The Hindu')