154.  As we confront the complex and profound changes being wrought by globalization, the most important development goal of the United Nations must continue to be the elimination of poverty worldwide. The most important means to this end is the promotion of sustainable and equitable growth, which in turn requires open markets and the stable legal and regulatory institutions that markets need in order to flourish. Adequate levels of development finance are also critical; for the poorest countries that find it difficult to attract private capital, this means continued reliance on official development assistance. Effective social development policies in the areas of health, education and welfare, which are important United Nations goals in their own right, also support the growth process.

155.  As we enter the new millennium, arguments over the costs and benefits of globalization have intensified. The controversies surrounding this issue were manifested by the violent protests at the World Trade Organization (WTO) meeting in Seattle at the end of 1999 and by subsequent demonstrations against the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in Washington. The disquiet is evident not only in the streets, however. Concerns about the consequences of globalization pervade much of the developing world. The tenth session of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) in February reflected many of these concerns. The Conference examined a range of issues central to the globalization debate and urged that the benefits of globalization be more widely shared both within and among countries.

156.  During the past year I have been engaged in an intensive process of reflection on the institutional and policy implications of globalization. At a meeting held with the executive heads of key United Nations agencies last April, two challenges clearly emerged. First, how can we ensure the effective participation of all countries in the global trading system? Second, how do we integrate the advancement of our social and environmental objectives with our economic and financial strategies?

157.  These critical challenges have resonated throughout the United Nations system during the past year. The Economic and Social Council, for example, has devoted priority attention to the relationship between globalization and the eradication of poverty. The special high-level meeting of the Council with the Bretton Woods institutions, held in April 2000, focused on strengthening financial arrangements as well as eradicating poverty. The easing of the economic and financial crises of the late 1990s has provided a window of opportunity to consider reforms, including the reform of elements of the international financial architecture. System-wide discussion of these issues is continuing.

158.  In the course of the July session of the Economic and Social Council, the need to integrate development, finance, trade and social policies more effectively was stressed, as was the need for better coordination among the United Nations system, the Bretton Woods institutions and WTO. Achieving greater policy coherence and consistency in the decisions taken by different intergovernmental forums remains a daunting task, however.

159.  The discussions in the Economic and Social Council were held in the context of a global recovery from the economic crises of the previous two years. The World Economic and Social Survey 2000, produced by the Department of Economic and Social Affairs, highlights the prospect of solid global economic growth continuing for some years to come. The global financial system remains vulnerable to disruption, however, and many of the problems that caused or exacerbated the Asian crisis of 1997 remain unresolved. There is no room for complacency and a continuing need for reform.

  Development finance

160.  The high-level event on financing for development planned for 2001 will provide an opportunity to advance a range of policies to promote financial stability and crisis prevention. I attach great importance to the work of the Preparatory Committee for that meeting, which will be the first ever to involve the world’s finance, trade and development organizations in a global consultation on issues of common concern. It is encouraging that the Preparatory Committee has already agreed on a broad agenda that includes the mobilization of domestic and international resources for development, trade, development assistance and debt relief.

  The need for reliable statistics

161.  Effective development policies require reliable statistical data, but the diverse and often inadequate statistical capacities of different countries make the task of developing standardized statistical indicators daunting. Responding to this need, the Economic and Social Council has called on international organizations to improve coordination of the production and dissemination of statistical indicators. It has also urged the need for increased statistical capacity-building at the national level. Enhancing the quality of information available to policy makers also emerged from the fifteenth meeting of the Group of Experts on the United Nations Programme in Public Administration and Finance, held in May 2000, as a fundamental prerequisite for addressing the challenges of globalization.
162.  In response to these requests, the United Nations is supporting capacity-building in national statistical offices, in particular in census-taking. We are also helping to strengthen statistical capacity in several subregions, including those of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) and the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN).

  Engaging with other actors

163.  During recent years the United Nations has engaged in a regular dialogue with a diverse range of actors involved in the development process, particularly civil society organizations and, increasingly, the private sector. In the past year, we have pursued a number of major initiatives with the private sector. The Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization, supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and the agreement with major drug companies to provide HIV/AIDS drug treatments at reduced cost to developing countries are two prominent examples. The Global Compact, whose partners met for the first time late in July, is but the latest demonstration of the increasing cooperation between the United Nations, the private sector and civil society.

  Improving operational performance

164.  Building on my reform programme launched in 1997, the United Nations system is making steady progress in improving the coherence and effectiveness of its operations, particularly at the country level. Since May 1999, 17 countries have participated in the United Nations Development Assistance Framework and 38 more will take part before the end of the year. To date 37 common country assessments of national development needs have been finalized and 55 more are being prepared. Another 19 assessments are in the planning phase.

  Eradication of poverty

165.  While there has been considerable progress in addressing the challenges of poverty during the last decade, particular success being achieved in Asia , half of the world’s population still must try to survive on less than $2 a day. Some 1.2 billion subsist on less than $1 a day. The five-year review of the outcome of the World Summit for Social Development committed the international community to halving the proportion of people living on $1 a day by 2015. This commitment must now be translated into effective action. The 2015 target must be central to our collective development efforts and I call on the Millennium Assembly to endorse it and to commit the resources necessary to achieve it.

166.  In July 2000, a report entitled A Better World for All: Progress towards the International Development Goals was submitted to the Group of Eight industrialized countries at their summit meeting in Okinawa. Produced at the request of the G-8, the report was the result of an unprecedented collaboration between the United Nations, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the World Bank and IMF. It charts the progress made towards achieving seven interrelated international development goals set by United Nations conferences in the 1990s.

167.  The report shows that, while some countries and regions have made progress, others continue to fall behind. In my letter to the G-8 forwarding the report, I called for a commitment to ensure financial stability; for policies that promote sustainable economic growth that favours the poor; for greater investment in health, education and welfare services; for greater openness to trade; for better access to markets, and for more effective dissemination of technology, together with the knowledge and the capacity to use it.

168.  Greater access to resources coupled with appropriate policies ensuring that those resources are deployed to maximum effect are critical to promoting development. Above all we need a new commitment on the part of developing and industrialized countries to transform paper targets into concrete achievements.

169.  External aid will continue to play an important part in supporting development, particularly in those countries that have not succeeded in attracting private capital. I have urged the G-8 countries to recommit themselves to reversing the decline in aid and to meeting the globally agreed targets of 0.7 per cent of GNP, with 0.15 per cent going to the least developed countries. I have also urged that greater efforts be made on all sides to enact the debt relief commitments already made.

170.  Poverty eradication is a complex and difficult task. To help clarify what our priorities should be, a working group of the United Nations Development Group, chaired by UNDP, has prepared a proposal for a system-wide poverty reduction strategy. Practical options for country teams to implement the strategy are currently being developed.

  Education

171.  Girls’ education is a critical factor in the eradication of poverty, as I stressed in my millennium report. At my request, the United Nations Development Group has established an informal task force, chaired by UNICEF, to design a 10-year initiative on girls’ education. I launched this initiative at the World Education Forum at Dakar in April.
172.  The initiative puts into place a set of five strategic objectives, and will bring greater coherence to the efforts undertaken within the United Nations system to promote girls’ education. It is intended primarily to support those Governments that are committed to ending the gender gap in the school system.

  Health

173.  Protecting and improving health standards, particularly of the poor and vulnerable, is crucial to social and economic development. Societies cannot prosper unless their people are healthy. Children cannot learn and adults cannot earn if they succumb to illness. Households are devastated when breadwinners fall ill or die prematurely. Protecting and improving health is a development issue, and is recognized as such by the World Health Organization’s strategic framework on health and poverty reduction, centred on collaborative efforts with partner agencies.

174.  A number of significant health initiatives are now under way, involving partnerships between United Nations agencies, the private sector and civil society. These include the Roll Back Malaria and Stop Tuberculosis campaigns, a programme to reduce maternal mortality through increased availability and use of emergency obstetric care in developing countries, and the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization.

  Urbanization

175.  Over the course of the next two decades, the global urban population will double, from 2.5 billion to 5 billion people. Almost all of the increase will be in developing countries. Understanding and managing the dynamics of urbanization and addressing issues of secure land tenure are also critical elements in any comprehensive poverty-reduction policy. Two initiatives, the Global Campaign for Good Urban Governance and the Global Campaign for Secure Tenure, have been launched by the United Nations Centre for Human Settlements (Habitat) to address these issues. The World Bank and Habitat are building a global alliance of cities and their development programme includes the Cities without Slums action plan, whose patron is President Nelson Mandela. The aim of the programme is to improve the living conditions of 100 million slum dwellers in the developing countries by 2020.

  Working together more effectively

176.  With the introduction of the poverty reduction strategy papers by the World Bank and IMF, the United Nations system as a whole is increasing its assistance to Governments that are committed to strengthening their own poverty reduction strategies. By drawing on United Nations presence and experience, and by using such tools as the common country assessment and United Nations Development Assistance Framework, we can assist national Governments to improve the effectiveness of development assistance. The United Nations, the World Bank and IMF have agreed to jointly monitor the progress made in this area in 14 countries, a number expected to increase to more than 20 in the near future.

  Sustainable development

177.  The overriding aim of sustainable development is twofold: to meet the economic needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs also, and to protect the environment in the process. We are, unfortunately, far from meeting these goals.

178.  The challenges of achieving sustainability are complex and multi-faceted. As countries have struggled to work themselves out of financial crises, to restore growth and raise incomes, environmental concerns have become less salient. Our efforts are frustrated by growing environmental degradation, pollution, delays in reducing the increase in greenhouse gas emissions, the depletion of resources and the threats to biodiversity that are exacerbated by unsustainable levels of consumption in the developed world, and by poverty-induced environmental stresses in the developing world.

179.  These challenges are compounded by the burden that continuing population growth is placing on the planet’s physical resources. The medium scenario, long-range world population projection issued in December 1999 by the Population Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs indicates that population is likely to increase from 6 billion in 1999 to 9.7 billion in 2150, before stabilizing at just above 10 billion. Virtually all world population growth between now and 2030 will be absorbed by the urban areas of the less developed regions.

180.  Within the United Nations, the Commission on Sustainable Development has been the main high-level intergovernmental forum for promoting integrated and cross-cutting proposals to achieve sustainable development. Since its establishment, and through its recent policy debates with stakeholders, the Commission has been a key forum for enhancing policy dialogue and for monitoring progress in sustainable development.

181.  Of the various programme activities undertaken under the auspices of the Commission, the work of the Intergovernmental Forum on Forests is particularly noteworthy. The forum, which successfully concluded its fourth session in February 2000, focuses on forest issues from the perspective of sustainable forest management, looking not only at the underlying causes of deforestation but also at the trade in forest products and the use of economic instruments for forest conservation. Looking ahead, the Forum has proposed that new international arrangements, including a United Nations Forum on Forests, be established with a view to promoting the implementation of internationally agreed actions on forests and to providing a coherent, transparent and participatory global framework for sustainable forest management.

182.  The Commission on Sustainable Development at its eighth session in April and May 2000 considered a range of agricultural issues and the question of integrated planning and management of land resources. At high-level meetings, ministers of agriculture, environment, trade, economics, and development cooperation conducted a candid and in-depth dialogue on land resource problems, sustainable agriculture, trade, economic growth and globalization. These multi-stakeholder dialogues also enable representative civil society organizations and private companies to make known to government officials their perspectives on both problems and possible solutions.

183.  The Commission also discussed the upcoming 10?year review of the outcome of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (Rio de Janeiro, 1992), stressing the need for early and effective preparations. It recommended that the General Assembly consider convening a summit-level review conference in 2002, preferably in a developing country. The 10-year review provides an important opportunity to reassess what progress has or has not been made towards meeting the ambitious targets established by the Conference. It is imperative that the international community take advantage of this event to reinvigorate the global partnerships needed to achieve sustainable development goals.

184.  The inaugural Global Ministerial Environment Forum — the sixth special session of the Governing Council of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) — was held in Sweden in May 2000. The resulting Malmö Ministerial Declaration spelled out the major environmental challenges of the twenty-first century, and the role and responsibility of the private sector and of civil society in meeting those challenges in an increasingly globalized world.

185.  With regard to multilateral environmental agreements, a major milestone was the successful negotiation of the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety to the Convention on Biological Diversity. The Protocol was adopted by more than 130 countries at Montreal in January 2000. This is the first global treaty that reaffirms, incorporates and operationalizes the precautionary principle enunciated in the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development. It outlines procedures to deal with issues arising from the transboundary movement, transit, handling and use of genetically modified organisms that may adversely affect the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity, or pose risks to human health and the environment. The Protocol was opened for signature at the fifth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention, held at Nairobi in May 2000, and was signed by 68 Governments.

186.  Progress has also been made towards creating a global treaty to reduce and eliminate the use of certain persistent organic pollutants. The Protocol on Liability and Compensation to the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal was adopted in December 1999. Further steps have been taken with regard to the implementation of the Global Programme of Action for the Protection of the Marine Environment from Land-based Activities and the Global International Waters Assessment. With respect to the former, a clearing house was launched at the special session of the General Assembly on small island developing States, held in September 1999, which will facilitate access to information on the issue. A strategic action plan on municipal wastewater has been developed in close collaboration with WHO, Habitat and the Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council.

187.  Efforts continue to be made to improve Member States’ understanding of the inter-linkages and complementarities between environment, trade and development issues. UNEP and UNCTAD, for example, have established a task force to increase national capacity to develop mutually supportive environment and trade policies.

188.  The United Nations Environment Programme has taken a leadership role in developing the environment components of the Global Compact, building on its long-standing relationship with the private sector. With the help of a grant from the United Nations Foundation, UNEP, in partnership with the Coalition for Environmentally Responsible Economics, the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, the Association of Chartered Accountants, the Stockholm Environment Institute and Imperial College, London, is working to promote sustainability reporting guidelines, prepared under the Global Reporting Initiative.

189.  At the regional level, a number of initiatives have been successfully implemented. For example, the Economic Commission for Europe (ECE) has four major areas of activity, namely, the negotiation and adoption of international legal instruments at the regional level; the Ministerial Conference “Environment for Europe”; the promotion of sustainable quality of life in human settlements; and environmental performance reviews.

190.  Instruments adopted include the Protocol to Abate Acidification, Eutrophication and Ground-level Ozone to the Convention on Long-range Transboundary Air Pollution (November 1999); the Convention on the Transboundary Effects of Industrial Accidents, which entered into force in April 2000; and a protocol on water and health to the Convention on the Protection and Use of Transboundary Watercourses and International Lakes.

191.  The environmental performance reviews help to foster effective environmental management policies in countries with economies in transition. During the year, initial reviews of Armenia, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan were undertaken, as were a second review of Bulgaria and follow-up reviews of Latvia, Lithuania, the Republic of Moldova and Slovenia. Reviews are also being scheduled for Romania and Uzbekistan.

192.  In Latin America, the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, together with UNEP, UNDP, the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank, is supporting the work of the Forum of Ministers of the Environment, established to help implement regional environmental priorities.

193.  A new, joint initiative of UNDP and the European Commission on Poverty and Environment outlines a set of concrete policy options for reducing poverty while at the same time protecting the natural resource base on which the poor depend for their livelihoods.

194.  Achieving sustainable development will continue to require commitment, enhanced policy dialogue, more effective cooperation within the United Nations system, and innovative and practical solutions in the field.

  Social development and the advancement of women

195.  In June 2000 the General Assembly held special sessions, at Geneva and New York, to conduct five-year reviews of the outcome of the World Summit for Social Development (Copenhagen, March 1995) and the Fourth World Conference on Women (Beijing, September 1995), during which it reiterated the commitment to put people at the centre of development efforts.

  Five-year review of the Copenhagen Summit

196.  The outcome of the special session of the General Assembly held at Geneva to review the World Summit for Social Development, demonstrated that agreements can be reached on sensitive social development issues. The General Assembly supported a wide array of initiatives to reduce poverty, spur the growth of employment and promote greater inclusiveness in the decision-making process, and issued an agreement spelling out specific targets and strategies.

197.  Prominent among the special session’s achievements were commitments to launch a global campaign against poverty; implement debt relief arrangements; empower the poor via access to microcredit schemes; ensure access to social services even during times of financial crisis; seek new and innovative sources of development finance; encourage corporate social responsibility and combat corruption, bribery, money-laundering and the illegal transfer of funds; attack the use of tax shelters that undermine national tax systems; promote dialogue between government, labour and employer groups to achieve broad-based social progress, and promote an international strategy to increase access to employment.

198.  To address problems of social exclusion and deprivation more effectively, it is vital that the resolutions adopted by United Nations conferences be followed up at the country level. National policy must benefit from the evolving international consensus on better ways of promoting human development. I recognize the importance of supporting Member States in the follow-up process, and I look forward to seeing, for example, how the Administrative Committee on Coordination Inter-Agency Task Force on basic social services for all, chaired by UNFPA, will take up this challenge in its new guidelines for country teams.

  Five-year review of the Beijing Conference

199.  At the special session held in New York, entitled “Women 2000: Gender Equality, Development and Peace for the Twenty-first Century”, the outcome document on the review of the Fourth World Conference on Women was adopted by consensus by the General Assembly. We are gratified that the Beijing Platform for Action has been strengthened by sharpening its focus in some areas, and by encompassing new issues that have emerged or become more salient during the last five years. Notable progress was made with regard to promoting the human rights of women, the issue of violence against women, and that of trafficking in women and girls. All these issues are now being addressed in a more holistic manner. The outcome document requests changes in legislation to remove any discriminatory provisions by 2005, and to eliminate legislative gaps that leave women and girls without effective legal protection or recourse against gender-based discrimination. It also urges Members States to sign and ratify the 1999 Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, one of the greatest legislative achievements in the area of women’s rights.

200.  Throughout the United Nations system consistent efforts are being made to incorporate a gender perspective into the substantive work of the Organization, particularly through the Inter-Agency Committee on Women and Gender Equality. At the country level, United Nations teams under the leadership of the resident coordinators continue to work with national partners to address gender issues, with support from the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM). Initiatives in over 100 countries work to support women’s economic empowerment, leadership and participation in peacemaking, as well as to promote women’s human rights and eliminate gender-based violence. More than half of the United Nations country teams around the world are working on joint programmes and projects on gender. Some 30 countries reported on gender advocacy initiatives. Furthermore, 17 country teams reported developing gender initiatives within the United Nations system itself.

  Coping with ageing and disability

201.  One of the most complex social development problems that increasing numbers of States confront is the problem of ageing populations. The International Year of Older Persons (1999) helped to advance our understanding of ageing, and its theme, “A society for all ages”, was illustrated by a range of activities that focused on the situation of older persons, multigenerational relationships, and the interplay between ageing and development. During the special plenary meetings on the follow-up to the Year, held during the fifty-fourth session of the General Assembly, many Member States noted that the commemoration of the Year provided a unique opportunity both to evaluate the impact of the demographic revolution in different societies and to develop appropriate strategies to meet the challenges presented by that revolution.

202.  Promoting equal opportunities for disabled persons continues to be a high priority. During the past year, our primary concerns in this area were accessibility; employment and sustainable livelihoods; and social services and social safety nets. A number of activities were organized to explore the role of technological progress in facilitating access, especially to information, as a resource for persons with disabilities.

  Drug control and crime prevention

203.  The Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention, which consists of the United Nations International Drug Control Programme and the Centre for International Crime Prevention, has been leading the Organization’s efforts to fight the spread of illicit drug cultivation and production, trafficking and abuse, transnational organized crime, trafficking in human beings, and corruption and money-laundering.

204.  The Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention has assisted in the design and realization of innovative strategies for reducing illicit drug cultivation and abuse, including the elaboration of the first ever convention against transnational organized crime and the launching of initiatives to counter money-laundering, corruption and trafficking in human beings.

205.  The United Nations International Drug Control Programme is assisting several Andean countries to implement a set of national plans for reducing drug production and trafficking, including direct assistance to provide poor farmers with economically viable alternatives to illicit crop cultivation. The Programme is working increasingly in partnership with the World Bank and bilateral donors in these projects. In Asia, the Programme has helped to develop a regional plan of action for reducing drug production, as well as country-specific initiatives in Afghanistan, the Lao People’s Democratic Republic and Myanmar.

206.  During the past year, the activities of the Centre for International Crime Prevention included supporting the negotiation process on the draft United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime and its three protocols, on trafficking in persons, migrants and firearms. It is expected that the text will be submitted to the General Assembly for adoption during its millennium session, and Heads of State are invited to join the United Nations in celebrating the first ever convention against transnational organized crime at a special signing in December, hosted at Palermo by the Government of Italy. The Centre also worked closely with the United Nations Interregional Crime and Research Institute, and other international organizations to generate improved data and knowledge on transnational organized crime, trafficking in human beings and corruption, and to promote appropriate responses by the international community to those problems. In March 2000, the United Nations Offshore Forum was launched. The Forum seeks to obtain global commitments to internationally accepted anti-money-laundering standards, and to provide technical assistance where necessary to assist jurisdictions in meeting them.

  HIV/AIDS

207.  The HIV/AIDS epidemic has become a serious development crisis. The pandemic is destroying the economic and social fabric in the countries most affected, reversing years of declining death rates and causing dramatic rises in mortality among young adults. At the end of 1999, it is estimated that 34.3 million adults and children around the world were living with HIV/AIDS, and that 18.8 million people have died since the beginning of the epidemic. According to the latest Report on the Global HIV/AIDS Epidemic, released by UNAIDS in June 2000, there were 5.4 million new infections in 1999, while the number of children orphaned by AIDS reached 13.2 million.

208.  Africa south of the Sahara is the most affected region, with a total of 24.5 million people living with HIV/AIDS. In that region, AIDS is now the leading cause of mortality. HIV prevalence rates among those aged 15 to 49 have already reached or exceeded 10 per cent in 16 countries, all in sub-Saharan Africa. In Eastern Europe and in South and East Asia a rapid increase in the number of HIV infections is cause for serious concern. In the Caribbean, several island States have worse epidemics than any other countries outside sub-Saharan Africa.

209.  In the last year, the United Nations has made significant efforts to help countries address these daunting challenges. In an unprecedented move, the Security Council addressed the impact of the epidemic on Africa in January 2000. Following the debate in the Council, a reference group was established by the Inter-Agency Standing Committee Working Group to examine the relationship between war and civil strife and the spread of HIV/AIDS.

210.  In June 1999, the international community responded to the epidemic by setting a new development target. The General Assembly, in its five-year review of the International Conference on Population and Development, called for reductions in new infections by 25 per cent among 15 to 24-year-olds in the most affected countries by 2005. Twenty-four of these countries are in Africa. I call on the Millennium Summit to adopt this as a goal, and also to support the goal of ensuring that at least 90 per cent of young people have access to the necessary information, education and services to protect themselves against HIV infection by 2005, and at least 95 per cent by 2010.

211.  System-wide efforts have been made to deal with the gender and drug aspects of HIV/AIDS. In an attempt to integrate gender awareness into HIV/AIDS policy and direct gender-focused research, advocacy and responses at the national and local levels, pilot programmes in nine developing countries were implemented by an inter-agency partnership between UNIFEM, UNAIDS and UNFPA. HIV/AIDS prevention activities have been increased by the United Nations International Drug Control Programme as part of its worldwide drug abuse prevention programmes.

212.  In collaboration with the UNAIDS secretariat and other co-sponsors, WHO is developing a global health sector strategy for improving the response of health systems to HIV/AIDS. A United Nations inter-agency task force chaired by WHO has developed a strategy for improving the access of AIDS victims to anti-AIDS drugs.

213.  UNAIDS and its co-sponsors have established a close dialogue with pharmaceutical companies. As a result five companies have agreed to discuss reductions in the prices of AIDS drugs for Africa and other poor regions. This is a most welcome step, but not sufficient. As well as increasing overall drug supplies to affected regions, there is an urgent need to strengthen the capacity of weak and over-burdened health care systems in developing countries. To help realize this goal, WHO is developing a strategy for comprehensive care and support for people living with HIV/AIDS.

214.  Major challenges in the fight against AIDS remain. There is a critical need for additional financial resources and development assistance. UNAIDS estimates that, to fight AIDS effectively in Africa alone, a minimum of $3 billion per year is needed. Money is by no means the only problem. In many countries official reluctance to speak out against the risks that HIV/AIDS poses is still causing unnecessary death and suffering.

  Bridging the digital divide

215.  Information and communication technologies provide unique opportunities to help advance economic and social development goals and to reduce poverty. As only 5 per cent of the world’s population has access to the Internet, however, the vast majority of the world’s peoples are denied the economic and social benefits that the information and communication technology revolution can offer. Bridging the “digital divide” between rich and poor has become an increasingly important development goal.

216.  The Ministerial Declaration adopted by the Economic and Social Council at its July session makes a forceful call for concerted action at national, regional and international levels to bridge the digital divide and put information and communication technologies at the service of development for all. It stresses the need to involve all relevant stakeholders in mobilizing those technologies for development. The Council’s session brought together ministers, representatives of civil society and an unprecedented number of major private sector companies from the information and communication technology sector to discuss how the digital divide might be bridged.

217.  National programmes for promoting information and communication technologies should be an integral part of development strategies. Connecting poor communities to the Internet will give people access to tele-medicine, distance learning and many other valuable social development resources; but achieving connectivity will require major investments in infrastructure, education and capacity-building.

218.  The provision of hardware is of little use, however, unless the necessary human resources are available to install, service and repair the equipment. Such expertise is often lacking in developing countries and it was for this reason that I announced the creation of the United Nations Information Technology Service (UNITeS) in my millennium report. UNITeS, a high-tech volunteer corps, will help train communities in the developing world in the use of information technologies. Content is also a critical issue, as 80 per cent of the Internet is in English, a language which less than 30 per cent of the world speaks.

219.  The commitment to bridging the digital divide is evident right across the United Nations system. In 1999, UNDP adopted a comprehensive strategy to guide its support to national partners. The key elements of the strategy are the promotion of awareness about the knowledge revolution; advocacy and policy formulation; helping to build connectivity to secure universal and affordable access to telecommunications infrastructure; developing national and human capacities; strengthening national language content; and fostering creative solutions to problems.

220.  At the regional level, the Internet Initiative for Africa focuses on assisting 15 sub-Saharan countries to develop Internet connectivity and build the capacities required for their operation. In Asia and the Pacific, the Asia-Pacific Development Information Programme helped to establish connectivity for several countries, including Bhutan, East Timor, the Lao People’s Democratic Republic and Tuvalu. UNDP, through its Sustainable Development Networking Programme and partnerships with the private sector, has promoted the use of open-source and public software and made available information on sustainable development in numerous languages.

221.  The Sustainable Cities Programme, managed by Habitat, builds resources for computer hardware and software into the budget of every city demonstration project it undertakes. Habitat has also developed an Internet-based networking system that electronically connects over 1,000 municipalities and 1,500 community-based organizations in Latin America.

222.  In its policy and advocacy work, through training and seminars, UNCTAD has vigorously promoted e-commerce as a development tool. The UNCTAD Reference Service, for example, has created an “e?bookshelf” on trade and development issues with material obtained from a large number of sources worldwide, and it is currently creating a virtual library of its own documents and publications.

223.  UNCTAD also continued to implement its Automated System for Customs Data, which uses information technologies to modernize and simplify customs procedures, to increase government revenue and to improve the transparency of customs administrations. Used by over 80 countries, this system has become the de facto international standard for customs modernization, and is available to developing countries and countries with economies in transition at a fraction of the cost of alternative systems.

224.  The regional commissions actively promoted information and communication technologies in their regions in 1999. The Economic Commission for Europe, in collaboration with the European Electronic Messaging Association, held a two-day Forum on E?Commerce for Transition Economies in the Digital Age at Geneva in June 2000. The ECE Committee for Trade, Industry and Enterprise Development will establish a team of specialists on Internet enterprise development to promote the free flow of information and exploit the business potential of new technologies. ECE and UNCTAD are collaborating on a programme to promote electronic commerce for the transition economies.

225.  The Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific has undertaken analyses of recent trends in the development and application of information technologies and their impact on the social and economic development of countries in the region.

226.  The theme of the first African Development Forum, organized by the Economic Commission for Africa and held at Addis Ababa in October 1999, was “The challenge to Africa of globalization and the information age”. Programmes initiated by the participants at that conference include NGOnet Africa (an action group to engage civil society in the promotion of information and communication technology for African development), a telecentre network, a programme to harness the digital African diaspora for African information technology development, and the formation of the Alliance for African Business, which aims to promote the development of information and communication infrastructure in Africa.

227.  Information technologies can also assist the United Nations in its advocacy activities for development. The launch of NetAid in 1999 was the largest syndicated Internet broadcast ever. The NetAid web site has received more than 40 million hits and helped raise support for a number of poverty reduction projects. Initial grants for Africa and Kosovo have reached $1.7 million.

  Africa

228.  Africa continues to face a range of complex and extraordinarily difficult economic, health and security challenges. These are now being addressed as a matter of priority by the Security Council and the General Assembly, as well as by United Nations programmes and agencies.

229.  The political, economic and social challenges faced by Africa were spelled out in detail in my 1998 report on the causes of conflict and the promotion of durable peace and sustainable development in Africa. Adoption of the recommendations in that report was widely recognized as being essential if sub-Saharan Africa were to overcome the challenges it confronted and realize its extraordinary potential. In December 1998, the General Assembly established an open-ended ad hoc Working Group to monitor the implementation of those recommendations. In February 2000, the mandate of the Working Group was altered and it will now focus its work on a number of priority areas. These include poverty eradication, development finance, debt relief, HIV/AIDS, refugees and internally displaced persons and support to countries in post-conflict situations.

230.  A review conducted by the Working Group reveals that major obstacles to progress remain — lack of political will, weak governance in a number of countries, armed conflict, difficulty in mobilizing financial resources, lack of adequate human resource capacity, public health issues — notably HIV/AIDS and malaria — the inappropriate structure of some economies, and limited access to technology.

231.  The breadth and depth of United Nations involvement in Africa is extraordinary. It includes preventive diplomacy, peacekeeping, electoral assistance, humanitarian and emergency relief, post-conflict reconstruction, environmental advice, support for Internet connectivity and economic and social development assistance.

232.  The World Food Programme assisted 22 million people in Africa over the past year. Of these, 15.7 million were refugees, internally displaced persons and other persons affected by natural disasters in some 26 countries. Some 6.3 million people benefited from WFP development assistance. A total of 44 per cent of WFP operational expenditures were for sub-Saharan Africa. WFP also provided some $37.1 million in support of human resource development through basic education (early childhood development, primary education and literacy), nutrition, health and training. Together with the World Bank and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), WFP is assisting 15 countries in Africa that have signed country-specific action plans to increase primary school enrolment.

233.  One of Africa’s greatest challenges is to protect and nurture its children. Yet the gap between what is being done and what needs be done is widening; the variety of interventions required is increasing. In war-torn countries like Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sierra Leone and the Sudan, for instance, UNICEF advocacy has focused attention on the special needs of children in the delivery of humanitarian assistance. In natural disasters, in Madagascar and Mozambique, UNICEF was able to combine immediate relief with the longer term reopening of schools, to create the normalcy children need most in putting such sudden disruptions behind them.

234.  High priority has been given to the survival of children and improvements in child and maternal health, centred on the revitalization of health systems. Efforts to improve children’s access to good quality basic education, especially for girls, continue to be pursued.

235.  The WHO Roll Back Malaria initiative, which was launched in Africa, is committed to halving the malaria burden by 2010. A summit of over 50 African heads of State, G-8 heads of State, development agencies and OECD health ministers, held at Abuja in April 2000, focused on the means of combating Africa’s malaria problem. The initiative is a joint venture of WHO with UNICEF, UNDP, the World Bank and development groups, private agencies and Governments. The WHO Kick Polio out of Africa campaign, with African political support, aims to eradicate polio from Africa in this year.

236.  The earlier discussion of the HIV/AIDS pandemic indicated what an extraordinary threat it poses not just to individuals in Africa but to the continent’s overall development prospects. Sub-Saharan Africa accounts for only one tenth of the global population, but it carries the burden of more than 80 per cent of AIDS-related deaths worldwide. It is in this tragic context that the Economic Commission for Africa has decided that the theme of the African Development Forum 2000 will be “AIDS: the greatest leadership challenge for Africa”. The Forum, which will be held at Addis Ababa in October 2000, is being organized in collaboration with UNAIDS, the World Bank, UNICEF and UNDP.

237.  The International Partnership against AIDS in Africa, a major, multi-agency endeavour, is charged with intensifying efforts and mobilizing additional resources for the battle against AIDS. Six countries —Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Ghana, Malawi, Mozambique and the United Republic of Tanzania — have been selected for intensified action.
 
238.  Prevention is critical to the containment of AIDS; in Africa, UNFPA is providing adolescents with greater access to youth-friendly reproductive health information, counselling and services. UNICEF has also geared many of its country programmes, particularly in eastern and southern Africa, to giving high priority to the control of HIV/AIDS.

239.  The United Nations Environment Programme is working with African Governments to provide policy support and capacity-building for international negotiations. A major goal is the revitalization of the African Ministerial Conference on the Environment as the main African policy forum in the field of the environment. UNEP also hosted expert and ministerial- level consultations to facilitate the development of a common African position on the issues of desertification, climate change, biosafety, and forest protection.

240.  The United Nations Environment Programme continues to support the strengthening of Africa’s human, managerial and institutional capacity to address the immense environmental challenges facing the continent as well as undertaking a number of programme initiatives to protect its land, water and biological resources. UNEP is working with Habitat, for example, to implement the new Managing Water for African Cities programme, which will assist major cities to improve water supply and management.

241.  Trade is critical to Africa’s future. In 1999, UNCTAD continued its cooperation with WTO and the International Trade Centre, acting as lead agency in promoting trade access for African countries. UNCTAD has also strengthened its programme of technical assistance and advisory services for debt management and negotiations for African countries during the past year, extending assistance to 18 African countries. The total long-term foreign debt of those 18 African countries stood at $95 billion at the end of 1998.