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Delegates from around the world and especially developing
countries stressed the reduction of suffering and poverty
and the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)
during the debate in the General Assembly. At the Millennium
Summit in 2000 in New York, 189 United Nations Member States
pledged to achieve by 2015 the following eight MDGs:
- Eradicate extreme hunger and poverty, by reducing by half
the proportion of people suffering from hunger and/or of those
living on less than one dollar a day;
- Achieve universal primary education, by ensuring that all
boys and girls complete a full course of primary schooling;
- Promote gender equality and empower women, by eliminating
gender disparity at in all levels of education;
- Reduce child mortality rate among children under five by
two thirds;
- Improve maternal health, by reducing the maternal mortality
ratio by three quarters;
- Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases, by halting
and beginning to reverse their incidence and spread;
- Ensure environmental sustainability, by integrating sustainable
development into country policies, reversing the loss of environmental
resources, reducing by half the proportion of people without
access to safe drinking water, and improving the lives of
at least 100 million slum dwellers by 2020; and
- Develop a global partnership for development, which includes
addressing least developed countries' needs by reducing trade
barriers and improving debt relief, and increasing official
development assistance from developed countries.
Namibia's Minister of Foreign Affairs, Hidipo Hamutenya, said
his Government was fully committed to implementing the Millennium
Declaration. His country allocated 23 per cent of its annual
budget to education and 15 per cent to health, and had determined
that improving the productive competitiveness of its economy
was the best way to address poverty. This meant providing
knowledge and skills to Namibians, including in information
technology, he said.
President Vicente Fox of Mexico pointed out that his country
was ahead of its timetable, having achieved one third of the
MDGs just two years after their adoption and would probably
reach all of them by 2010. Mexico had achieved considerable
advances in education, health, poverty reduction and equitable
distribution of income.
Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs Baboucarr-Blaise Ismaila
Jagne of The Gambia said his country planned to be well ahead
of the MDGs for education by 2015. Gross enrollment rates
had gone from 44 per cent eight years ago to 90 per cent in
2003, he said. Transition rates from primary to secondary
schools had jumped from 12 to 77 per cent, while tertiary
level institutions were thriving, and a new University of
the Gambia had recently opened.
Despite the good news, Minister for Foreign Affairs Kandu
Wangchuk of Bhutan pointed out that 33 countries, which account
for 26 per cent of world population, were reported to be off
the track on more than half of the MDGs. He further noted
that of these countries, 23 are in sub-Saharan Africa.
With regard to the last MDG, trade is one of the most effective
ways to reduce poverty. Developing countries have pointed
out the need for industrialized countries to reduce trade
barriers, particularly for agricultural products, at development
summits, such as in Monterrey, Mexico in March 2002 and in
Doha, Qatar in November 2001. During this year's general debate,
these countries expressed their dissatisfaction with the outcome
of the September 2003 World Trade Organization (WTO) Conference
in Cancun. Developing countries alleged that some industrialized
countries would not give up certain prohibited trade subsidies
and had abandoned the talks.
Nguyen Dzy Nien, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Viet Nam,
said protectionist measures "have been imposed to prevent
developing countries' products from entering into developed
countries' markets". He added that the situation ran
counter to WTO agreements and spoke of unfair lawsuits against
growers of Viet Nam's catfish, cotton farmers in Burkina Faso
and indigenous cultivators of medicinal herbs in Brazil. Echoing
the eighth MDG, Mr. Nguyen urged for a restructuring of the
world's financial and trade system to make it more "democratic
and open, where developing countries could have a better chance".
The greatest obstacle to the development of Lesotho and to
reaching the objectives of the MDGs is the scourge of HIV/AIDS,
said that country's Prime Minister, Pakalitha B. Mosisili.
High levels of morbidity and mortality, especially among the
working-age groups, are the leading cause of food insecurity
and famine in Southern Africa, he added, pointing out that
of the 53 African countries, only 5 had achieved the 7-per-cent
growth rate required to meet the MDG, 43 countries registered
growth rates below 7 per cent, and 5 showed negative growth
rates.
Cuba's Minister of Exterior Relations Felipe Perez Roque said
that 1.2 billion people live in extreme poverty and 800 million
suffer from hunger. He pointed out the difficulty the developing
world faced in reaching the MDG of halving the proportion
of people living in extreme poverty and suffering from hunger:
the official development assistance (ODA) from industrialized
countries totalled $53 billion, while the developed countries
made a total payment of $350 billion on interest for external
debt.
President Lucio Gutierrez of Ecuador reflected on the consequences
of this situation in his own country, asking: "How can
we get close to the minimum requirements for education, health,
growth and social welfare, published in United Nations manuals,
if my country, Ecuador, appropriates over 40 per cent of its
national budget to cover the servicing of the foreign debt?"
Kaliopate Tavola, Minister of Foreign Affairs and External
Trade of Fiji, said emerging countries like his needed preferential
access to markets for their economic survival. Developed countries
should think of better trade access as an "affirmative
action to reduce that yawning chasm between the rich North
and the poverty-stricken South", he said, urging the
WTO to take up this task and "salvage the wreckage of
Cancun".
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