STATEMENT BY MARK MALLOCH BROWN
ADMINISTRATOR, UNITED NATIONS DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMME
TO
UNITED NATIONS CONFERENCE ON LEAST DEVELOPED
COUNTRIES
Brussels, May 14, 2001
(To be checked against delivery)
Minister Dr Leonardo
Santos Simao, Minister Anne Kristin Sydnes, Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,
It
is a great pleasure to be able to join you all for this 3rd UN
Conference on Least Developed Countries, and let me start by warmly thanking
our hosts, the European Union. It is
very encouraging to see one of the most powerful groups of the world’s richest
nations willing and ready to support a serious look at the needs of the very
poorest.
But
the fact is closer scrutiny and more decisive action on behalf of the LDCs is
long overdue by all of us who work in development. Taken as a whole, our record
has been distressingly poor.
As
we all know, the number of LDCs has grown rather than shrunk to the current
membership of 49 countries. While these now encompass just over 10% of the world’s population, they account for
just 1% of total global income. For 19 of 41 LDCs for which data is
available, people are less well off than they were 20 years ago.
With
the problem most acute in Africa, LDCs have been disproportionately prone to
and victimized by conflict and natural disasters. As the UNDP Publication “Disaster Profiles of LDCs” that we are
circulating here shows, no fewer than 24 of 49 LDCs face high levels of
disaster risk and six countries have been hit by two or more disasters in the
past 15 years.
The
real victims are, as always, the poor. Nearly half the population of all LDCs
struggle to survive on less than a dollar a day. One in six children die before their fifth birthday,
and more than half the adult
population, most of them women, are illiterate. Despite all of this – and in part contributing to it - in per capita terms Official Development
Assistance to LDCs plummeted by 45% since 1990.
So
it comes as little surprise that the large majority of LDCs are currently at serious risk of missing
the development targets set out in last year’s historic Millennium Declaration.
From the overarching goal of halving poverty and hunger by 2015 to providing
universal primary education to reversing the spread of HIV/AIDS, on current
trends the overall picture looks very gloomy.
That
is the bad news. The good news is that many of the goals are still achievable –
even for the very poorest countries. And there are some encouraging signs of progress over the past decade –
with 15 countries enjoying per capita growth rates of 2% or higher.
So
we must accelerate and expand these successes. And we must do it now, because
tomorrow will be too late for millions of men, women and children.
I. Reforming Global Governance
But
how? The Millennium Declaration provides part of the answer. First by crafting
a more equitable globalization that provides real benefits to poor people rather than excluding them,
and second by building development on a foundation of democracy, human rights
and good governance.
That
focus on both global and national governance issues is essential. Because if
LDCs are going to move onto the kind of sustainable growth path necessary for
real poverty reduction, then a more equitable international economic and
political system that provides them with both a real voice and real
opportunities is the first step. But at the same time, taking full advantage of
those opportunities depends in large part on having the appropriate national
institutional capacity and policy frameworks in place.
The
bottom line is that in recent years the global trading system has not worked to
the benefit of the poor. LDCs’ share
of global trade halved over the past
two decades, sinking below 0.5%. And as
we move into the future, the spread of cutting edge new technologies is so far
leaving the poorest even further behind. Despite some significant growth in
areas like cellular services, in many LDCs Internet Users still number in the
hundreds and monthly access charges can
be as much as 6 times per capita GDP,
strangling further growth. In a very real sense, LDCs are the conscience of
globalization.
Exacerbating
the problems is the fact that the global economy is far from a level playing
field. Continued trade barriers in areas like agriculture and textiles where
developing countries have real comparative advantages are supported by annual global subsidies that exceed Africa’s GDP
and cost the developing world more than three times as much in lost trade than
it receives in ODA every year.
That
is why it is imperative as a first step that all OECD members follow through on
stated commitments and offer duty and quota free access to LDCs. The costs are
miniscule but the potential benefits enormous, particularly given the fact that
agriculture makes up more than a third of GDP in LDCs and employs more than
half the labour force.
But
the broader challenge for all of us is to make sure that the primary goal of
any new trade round is to harness the
powerful engines of regional and global integration, including
greatly enhanced South-South trade links,
to reverse this long marginalisation of the poor.
And
for that to work, we need to start with a kind of reverse conditionality: if developed countries are really committed
to using trade to drive human development, then they must prove their bona
fides by first working with developing countries to find real solutions to
implementation problems and other unresolved issues from previous
agreements in areas like technology transfer and the phasing out of textile
quotas.
In
the longer run, it also requires some innovative thinking on new ways to bring
the poor into the mainstream of the global economy. And UNDP is currently
working on a new initiative to highlight and start to address Southern concerns
on these issues that we will be starting
to roll out later this year.
But
such moves alone will not be sufficient to allow LDCs to thrive in the
tempestuous international economy. Many
countries still lack the capacity to participate in international trade agreements,
let alone mainstream trade initiatives directly into broader poverty reduction
strategies.
That
is why we also need to offer more direct support to capacity building through
initiatives like the Enhanced Integrated Framework, a unique six agency initiative including UNDP, that helps
LDCs build a coherent, fully integrated
trade policy clearly linked to national priorities.
Despite a slow start, the revamped programme
has now raised nearly $6m from 15 donors and will initially be working in eight
countries. We hope more pledges will be forthcoming this week.
But
at best a more equitable trading system and broader national capacity to
participate is just one leg of the economic tripod needed to help LDCs at a
global level. The other two are wider and deeper debt relief and increased
development assistance, both funded out of additional resources rather than
raiding existing funds.
I
know these issues will be discussed in more detail in other sessions this week,
so I will not dwell on them here other than to point out the obvious: it is at
best problematic and at worst hypocritical that last year total ODA shrunk to
its lowest level ever as a proportion of OECD GNP – just 0.22% – less than a third of the accepted
target of 0.7%.
And
let me just highlight one other very troubling dimension to the overall decline
in development assistance: and that is
the fact that the growing tendency to focus on particular themes and countries
has left around half of all LDCs
without donors regarding them as a
designated priority development partner.
That is one key reason why UNDP’s unconditional commitment to
maintaining a universal global presence and working with all LDCs, not
just a select few, is so important.
But
if a reformed and fully funded global governance system is a precondition for
jumpstarting economic growth in poor countries, the ability of individual countries to take advantage of it to
meet the Millennium targets will in large part depend on good, democratic
governance in the form of effective,
transparent and flexible institutions at all levels of society.
As
the UN Economic Commission for Africa’s latest report argues, this new focus on good governance is what lies at the
heart of encouraging signs of progress
in poverty reduction on the continent. And that link also underpins the Millennium Declaration’s commitment to
“strengthen the capacity of all countries
to implement the principles of democracy and human rights.”
In
the first analysis, effective, democratic institutions are a key foundation for
mediating and mitigating conflict and other crises by providing non-violent
means of resolving political disputes and managing resources.
But
the benefits of good governance spread much wider than that: it provides a base to implement strong, country-owned development
strategies, to handle political and economic shocks, to reduce corruption, and, critically, to give the poor a
political voice to demand the tools, services and protections needed to
provide a better future for themselves
and their families.
Just
as important, transparent and accountable social and political institutions
also sharply reduce perceptions of political and economic risk while providing
a stable platform for the strong property rights, sound macroeconomic policies
and flexible regulatory systems so
necessary to new investment and widely shared economic growth.
Here
I am talking about both foreign investment – where while the picture has
improved in recent years, LDCs still account for less than 0.5% of global flows
– and the often neglected area of
domestic capital creation. Encouraging real domestic savings, expanding credit schemes to the poor and
encouraging the return of flight capital can spur a virtuous cycle of locally
financed growth and prosperity.
Just
look at Mozambique’s strong performance over much of the past decade. Or the
remarkable social progress achieved in Bangladesh. Or the success of Botswana, which was once an LDC but is now is
one of the richest countries on the continent.
Examples
like these help explain the importance
of and links between public sector reform and decentralization, improving
electoral and parliamentary systems, strengthening human rights and access to
justice, and conflict prevention and peace-building. And that is why these are
the four sets of deliverables that are the subject of today’s conference
session.
They
are the product of intensive
multilateral discussions and provide a broad framework of concrete, clearly identifiable areas of
intervention for the entire UN system and its partners, including the private
sector and civil society. And while this is a UN system-wide effort, as the lead UN agency working on governance
issues and with a mandate and commitment to expand our role in helping
developing countries build real
capacity in all these areas , UNDP clearly has a special
responsibility.
That
is why I am very pleased to be able to
announce today the launch of new UNDP
Democratic Governance Trust Fund that will be used to channel funds to
programmes in all these areas. And much of this work will now be backed by a new Thematic Facility on Democratic
Governance, based in Oslo, that
Minister Sydnes and I recently opened together,
From helping promote decentralization in
Nepal, to our work rebuilding security services in Somalia, to
strengthening human rights protections in Yemen, we already have real skills and
expertise. And there is already real demand with requests for assistance in areas like support for democratic
institutions, for example, having soared tenfold in less than a decade.
As
we expand this work, we can draw on real expertise and experience. On human
rights strengthening alone we now have
programmes in over 20 LDCs, including 13 now covered by our HURIST partnership
with the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. And with no LDC yet
having women’s representation in parliament greater than 20%, UNDP is making a particular effort to highlight
gender equality issues and mainstream them into our programming.
But
of course, governance issues cut across a wide range of other areas critical to
development, including several of UNDP’s other
core practice areas such as helping governments establish sensible
sustainable energy policies to tapping the potential of e-government in
provision of services. Our sister
agencies UNIFEM, UN Volunteers and, in particular, the UN Capital Development
Fund, are all very active in LDCs. And across all these organizations and areas,
we are seeking to leverage our traditional strengths in aid coordination and
boosting South-South cooperation – an
area with particular potential for LDCs, who have much to learn from experience
of successful developing countries.
Finally,
to help focus all these activities, the UN Development Group that I chair – the
umbrella group coordinating all UN agencies that work in development arena– is
working with the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs in leading a new
country and global level monitoring and benchmarking exercise on progress
towards reaching the Millennium targets.
We
have already produced our first report – on Tanzania –and are well underway
working on the next nine, including several LDCs. Our hope is that, working
closely with Governments and a wide range of partners including the IMF, World
Bank and others, we will be able to roll these out on a steady basis over the
next year. Like UNDP’s very successful global and national Human Development
Reports, I believe they will become a very useful tool that can help inform
policymaking as part of broader, country-driven poverty reduction strategies.
But
let me close by warning that, in the final analysis, helping LDCs’ achieve the UN Charter goal of “social progress and better standards of
life in larger freedom,” will depend on new development assistance being
available – and donors should keep in mind the target, agreed ten years ago, of
allocating at least 0.15% of their GNP to LDCs.
As I have made very clear, this new focus on issues of governance
is both welcome and very important. It is the foundation on which growth,
prosperity and a better life for the poor is built.
But the kind of
democratic, accountable institutions we are trying to sustain simply cannot
take seed in soil of economic decline. That is why support for good governance
should never be seen as a substitute to more expensive development projects in
areas like health, education and infrastructure. Rather it is an additional,
essential cost – the scaffolding which countries can use to tackle all those
other projects more effectively.
But I do think that we now
have an historic opportunity. If we can combine a new effort to meet the
challenges of global governance with a revitalized commitment by LDCs themselves to tackle these issues at a national level,
then we have every chance of ensuring
that the next LDC conference has fewer participants and many more countries
well on track towards meeting the Millennium Goals.
Thank
You