Over the course of the three-day 2005 World Summit, each Member State made a statement in the high-level plenary of the General Assembly. Heads of State and Government took this opportunity to put forward their country’s experience in working towards the implementation of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Many expressed their support for the reforms agreed upon at the Summit, as well as their frustrations at the lack of resolution on issues left out of the outcome document.
The majority of world leaders reaffirmed their commitment to the MDGs while acknowledging that much more concrete actions were needed to ensure these goals are achieved by 2015. “Our approach to the challenge to commit and deploy the necessary resources for the realization of the Millennium Development Goals has been half-hearted, timid and tepid”, South African President Thabo Mbeki told the Summit. Representatives of developing countries outlined the work that had been done on a national level to work towards the MDGs and emphasized the crucial importance of global partnerships and support from wealthy countries to achieve the goals. Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo said: “For a developing country like ours, we agree that the primary responsibility for socio-economic development in our country rest with us. Nevertheless, our efforts must be complemented by global support.”
The responsibility of developed countries to implement the Monterrey Consensus and ensure they meet or surpass the target of providing 0.7 per cent of gross national product in official development assistance (ODA) was widely acknowledged. United States President George W. Bush spoke of the newly-established Millennium Challenge Account, which is “increasing United States aid for countries that govern justly, invest in their people and promote economic freedom”. However, many leaders stressed that increased development assistance must be on fair and equitable terms. “Politically-driven hidden agendas and shifting ideologies to bring coercive influence on the recipients must end. They serve only to ‘punish the poor’”, said Prime Minister Samdech Hun Sen of Cambodia.
In addition to ODA, there were also repeated calls for a successful outcome to the Doha round of the World Trade Organization’s trade negotiations and the finalization of the Group of Eight agreement in Gleneagles, Scotland to cancel the debt of 18 heavily indebted poor countries, in order to make real progress on the MDGs.
One of the key outcomes of the Summit is the agreement on the “responsibility to protect” as a basis for collective action against genocide, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity, which was widely endorsed. “In this day and age, we can no longer afford to stand back if a country fails to protect its citizens against grave human rights abuses”, President Festus Mogae of Botswana said.
Despite the lack of agreement on specific elements of United Nations reform, strong support for the establishment of a UN Peacebuilding Commission was voiced by many speakers. “Peace does not prevail automatically when a conflict ends”, said Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi of Japan. “The new, strong United Nations, with the proposed Peacebuilding Commission in place, must show initiative in ensuring a smooth transition from ceasefire to nation-building, and to reconciliation, justice and reconstruction.” Similarly, support for the creation of a Human Rights Council was expressed. “We need a standing body at a higher level in the UN system, commensurate with the importance of human rights”, said Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin. “That is why we support the proposal for an effective Human Rights Council. I cannot disguise our profound disappointment that we were not able to agree at this Summit on all of the elements required to make it operational.”
While there was much condemnation of terrorist activities and a call for united action against terrorism in all its forms, this sentiment was tempered by frustration and regret at the lack of agreement on disarmament and nuclear non-proliferation. “We support the counter-terrorism outcome of this Summit, including the momentum to conclude the Comprehensive Terrorism Convention”, said Australian Prime Minister John Howard, adding that “more could have been achieved ... there has been understandable disappointment and criticism at the lack of language on disarmament and non-proliferation, particularly given the risk of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction to terrorists”.
The failure to come to an agreement on certain issues was met with a renewed commitment to continue working towards a resolution and consensus in the near future. President Ricardo Lagos of Chile said that the outcome document should be viewed with interest and satisfaction, and “although it does not fully meet our expectations we consider it as the starting point on the road to changes needed by the Organization, and not as the goal itself”. With the conclusion of the 2005 World Summit, the next step is the translation of words into real multilateral action to support the MDGs. “The world is expecting us to make poverty history–to turn poverty into something our great grandchildren will read about but not really understand, like the medieval plagues”, Kjell Magne Bondevik, Prime Minister of Norway, said. “We can do it, and we must do it,” he added. It is now up to our world leaders to ensure this takes place. |
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