BRUSSELS, MAY 14-20, 2001
STATEMENT BY DENMARK
The least developed countries face a staggering agenda. They have to considerably improve the living standards of the majority of their population while being confronted with great economic and political uncertainty. In the rest of the world, the number of human beings living in absolute poverty has decreased throughout the 1990s. During the same period, however, the number has been on the rise in most Least Developed Countries, particularly in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa.
For the group of developing countries as a whole, globalization has in the last 20 to 30 years led to more export, more foreign direct investments and, generally more integration in the global division of labour. The overall result has been economic and political progress. The number of poor has fallen over the last two decades – and the income gap between the countries of the world has been narrowing.
For the poorest 49 countries, however, the vision of benefits from globalisation and the modern economy is still a mirage. For it has been extremely difficult for the LDCs to harvest the fruits of globalisation.
It is not the first time that we gather to discuss the plight of the least
developed countries, but today we must face the hard facts: all the discussions
and the Programmes of Action for the last two decades have not led to much
progress. Maybe they have to some extent cushioned the least developed countries
from being even further marginalized in the world economy. This is obviously
a very limited achievement – we need to be far more ambitious.
There are many reasons for the lack of progress: Political instability, armed conflict, unaccountable government and flawed economic policy are some. The least developed countries themselves have a responsibility for putting this right. But their efforts will be of no avail if the external economic environment and the transfer of resources do not improve. The majority of the industrialized countries have provided far less official development assistance than the 0,15 of GNP foreseen by the Programmes of Action for the last two decades. Today, rich countries only provide one third of the official development assistance they committed themselves to.
Denmark wants this conference to send a strong signal to the international
donor community; there is another way. We believe that to reach the very important
international development target of halving the number of people living in
poverty by 2015, ODA is an indispensable and essential tool. Denmark is therefore
committed to providing 1 % of GNP in overall Official Development Assistance
of which a third goes to the least developed countries. But to continue this
effort we need other rich countries to shoulder their part of the cost and
we need to demonstrate that aid works when focusing clearly on poverty reduction.
There are reasons for optimism. Many LDCs have committed themselves to
putting poverty reduction at the very centre of their development efforts,
and a number of countries are making significant strides towards accountable
and responsive government and more inclusive public participation in the decision
making process. In these countries the political and economic environment
is improving. This will attract foreign investment and provides incentives
for domestic savings and investment.
At the same time, the international community is demonstrating willingness to tackle important systemic issues such as the debt burden and constrained market access.
The HIPC initiative will provide substantial debt relief for the heavily
indebted LDCs. This is a recent and fundamentally important step taken by
creditors and donors to help HIPC countries to a fresh start. The poverty
focus of HIPC is a welcome shift in the direction of a bottom up approach
to development.
It is clear that development assistance in itself will not solve the problems
of the LDCs. The least developed countries must integrate into the global
economy. A central precondition for that is open markets. Therefore the recent
EU-decision “Everything but Arms”, which over the coming years will provide
full access for the LDCs to the EU-markets is an important first step in the
right direction. Now is the time for other industrialized countries to follow
suit.
Again, open markets will not make much of a difference if countries are
unable to exploit them. Development agencies should greatly step up their
support to help least developed countries build the knowledge, the legal and
institutional framework as well as the productive capacity required to utilize
these opportunities.
There is a convergence of views internationally of what it takes to
enable the least developed countries to break the negative spiral of
marginalization. Let us seize this opportunity and put and end to this unfair
state of affairs.