| I believe we
are now at a pivotal moment. There
has been a rethinking of development
issues triggered in part by the
legitimacy crises facing globalization
which were so dramatically illustrated
in the protests that started in
Seattle three years ago and given
added impetus by the terrible attack
on New York. From Afghanistan to
Sierra Leone the world has now
seen how all of us can be affected
by the alienation and frustration
poverty breeds; the lack of faith
in political institutions it fuels;
and the devastating impact on human
dignity it exacts.
But
as we seek to confront these challenges, both
the entitlement culture of aid from the 1960s
and 1970s and the top-down conditionality approach
of the 1980s and 1990s have been discredited.
In their place, what is emerging is a new consensus
that demands we match mutual commitments and
mutual accountability: a political bargain
being built around a partnership of self-interest
between the countries of North and South under
which sustained political and economic reform
by developing countries will be matched by
direct support from the rich world in the form
of the trade, aid and investment needed if
they are to succeed.
The broad outlines of that new thinking
emerged at the UN Conference on Financing
for Development at Monterrey, Mexico
earlier this year, when leaders from
both developed and developing countries
started to map out a Global Deal backed
by resources and action. The United States
promised to increase development assistance
by 50 percent, and the EU pledged to
increase aid spending to 0.39 percent
of GDP. This was the first significant
increase in aid from both sides of the
Atlantic since the 1960s, and helped
change the terms of the debate from how
to spend shrinking pool of aid on a growing
number of problems to making the most
effective use of a steadily increasing
resource base.
Then,
at the World Summit for Sustainable
Development in Johannesburg earlier this
month, heads of state and ministers adopted
an Implementation Plan which outlines
more than 50 pages of constructive "actions" to
be taken by governments and their partners.
Particularly impressive were the new
partnerships with civil society and the
practical agenda for capacity development
in WSSD's five focus areas: Water, Energy,
Health, Agriculture and Biodiversity.
But in spite of the substantial progress
made at these conferences, there are
still competing visions for moving forward.
And in some cases, such as trade, we
have actually seen some very worrying
steps backward in terms of commitments
to poor countries for opening markets
in agriculture and other areas. Developing
countries, remembering unmet past promises
and aware that aid has been on a steady
downward trajectory over the past decade--Africa's
per capita aid levels have been almost
halved despite real political and economic
reform in many countries--remain skeptical
that the promised resources will be raised
to support the new rhetoric.
How can we re-engage donors around the
benefits of concerted, effective interventions
in areas from health to education that
can pay huge global dividends in welfare
and security? And how can we can we help
reorient priorities in those developing
countries where national policy is still
too often insufficiently focused around
poverty, health, and the environment?
The answer to both questions, I believe,
lies in the Millennium Development Goals
(MDGs) that were endorsed by 189 countries
at the United Nations Millennium Summit
two years ago. Drawn from the global
conferences of the 1990s, they enjoy
unique global authority while encompassing
time-bound commitments to confront the
major development challenges of our time
from providing universal primary education,
to halting the spread of HIV/AIDS, to
halving extreme poverty, all by 2015.
The MDGs are not just idealistic aspirations:
they are ambitious but achievable targets
for making measurable improvements in
the lives of the world's poorest citizens.
And they can be a powerful tool for building
the political constituency and establishing
the public policy priorities to tackle
poverty effectively. So, as Chair of
the UN Development Group, I am leading
a major UN system effort that is providing
monitoring and research as well as advocacy
to support national campaigns in both
the North and South for the MDGs. Because
if we can build on the real momentum
of the past two years, and the exciting
new partnerships emerging between the
UN system, civil society, governments,
and others that are now opening up -
then I think we have every chance of
harnessing this new global commitment
for change to build a safer and more
prosperous world for everybody.
(Mark Malloch Brown is Administrator
of the United Nations Development Programme.
He wrote this essay at the invitation
of Earthtimes.)
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