Dear Editor,
As an international relations and economic development specialist, I am following the speeches being delivered at the United Nations summit on achieving millennium development goals (MDGs) relating to the eradication of poverty. Some 140 world leaders, including Barack Obama and our own Bharrat Jagdeo, are attending the summit to assess the progress made towards the MDGs and to renew their commitment to achieving them. The MDGS were adopted in the wake of the Millennium Summit in 2000 when a number of targets were set to help poor countries meet the minimum needs of their people.
Among the MDGs set in 2000 to be attained by 2015 were to reduce the abject conditions of extreme poverty; to reduce HIV/AIDS cases; to protect the global environment from further degradation; to reduce corruption; to eliminate diseases; and to provide access to education, health care, and clean water for everyone in the Third World. The wealthy pledged to help the poorer countries with aid and erase their stifling debt.
The poor countries would have primary responsibility for achieving the MDGs while the rich countries would provide most of the funding to attain them. Some of the MDGs were met like a reduction in debt of the most heavily indebted countries like Guyana, Uganda and Haiti. But most countries have also taken on new debts to meet the needs of their people.
At the UN, the leaders acknowledged that they are not on course to reaching MDGs with the target date being 2015. Since 2000, poverty has increased and the income gap between rich and poor has widened. The UN estimates that over one billion people are still living in extreme poverty of less than US$1.25 per day.
The number of undernourished people has also increased. People infected with HIV/AIDs has been going up. So clearly, the globe is not on course to meeting its MDGs. Many reasons have been advanced for this failure – the chief ones being corruption, lack of accountability and poor planning.
President Obama has adopted the right attitude in tackling poverty and on assessing the MDGs of poor countries. He announced an overhaul of American foreign aid policy in which America will not just give money any more but actually help the poor countries to become self sufficient.
The President, addressing the UN on Wednesday, said “Aid alone is not development.” He defines “development as helping nations to actually develop – moving from poverty to prosperity. And we need more than just aid to unleash that change.”
Obama said that those countries that have relied on food assistance for generations are not attaining development but are caught in dependence.
“It’s a cycle we need to break. Instead of just managing poverty, we have to offer nations a path out of poverty.” He said countries will have to “build their own capacity to provide for their people and sustainable development.” He told the UN gathering that the US will partner with countries that are willing to take the lead. “Every nation will pursue its own path to prosperity. We know that countries are more likely to prosper when they encourage entrepreneurship; when they invest in their infrastructure; and when they expand trade and welcome investment.”
He also said that the US would focus America’s development efforts on countries which promoted good governance and democracy; the rule of law and equal administration of justice; transparent institutions, with strong civil societies; and respect for human rights.
I strongly endorse Obama’s position in creating a new partnership between America and developing countries that will promote genuine development. In this way, I think poor countries stand a better chance to achieving their MDGs.
Yours faithfully,
Vishnu Bisram
