PRESS BRIEFING BY UNDP ADMINISTRATOR

Mark Malloch Brown, Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), said today he hoped the world leaders meeting next week in Evian, France, would be discussing not whether to address the anti-poverty and development goals of the 2000 Millennium Summit, but how they could resolve them.

Evian will be host to the summit of the Group of 8 industrialized countries (G-8) -- United Kingdom, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russian Federation and United States –- from 1 to 3 June.  Mr. Brown, speaking at a Headquarters press briefing, asked correspondents to remind G-8 leaders that a lot more was going on beyond the important issues of Iraq and terrorism and the much broader security agenda related to global poverty.  As a contributing host of the summit, the UNDP had prepared an “extremely subversive document”, which would rest on the seat of every leader.  It assessed where thing stood towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals.

The UNDP was seeking to remind the international community that something very important had been begun since the Millennium Assembly that must not be derailed by current events, he said.  Leaders had gone to Monterrey and, from there, to Johannesburg, and had emerged with a consensus about working together -- North and South -- to attack those global problems.  Resources had been committed at Monterrey, which took the form of a down payment to get started on an agenda.  Then, at Johannesburg, the first action plans were formulated towards achieving those Goals.

Shifting to Iraq, he said the focus had very much been on unilateralism, but that should not overshadow the fact of interdependence.  In recent months, elections in Europe had reflected how poverty in the South translated into migration pressures, with a huge impact on the outcomes of the elections.   Renewed attention, in light of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) outbreak and movement, had shown how infectious diseases respected no borders.

“Your security is my security; your welfare is my welfare”, he continued.  Global poverty in one part of the world was a threat to people in other parts.  In both a security and a commercial sense, but also in a conscience sense, something very important had been sown in the last few years.  He appealed to leaders not to lose sight of that in addressing the wounded relationships over Iraq.  The track record demonstrated in UNDP’s report had been one of extraordinary progress and extraordinary challenges.

He said he wished to point out, as stated in UNDP’s forthcoming Human Development Report, that 54 countries were poorer today than they were 10 years ago.  In sub-Saharan Africa, 40 per cent of the children were not attending primary school.  So, the challenge of ensuring a more uniform progress, region by region, towards the Millennium Development Goals was dramatic.  The Report, due out in July, contained new ideas about how to achieve those Goals.  It argued that, unless all impediments to development were “attacked”, the targets would not be met on time.

The G-8, through vigorous action, could balance what it had decided to do on Iraq and terrorism, by an equally practical short-term agenda to get the world on

track to reaching those Goals, he stressed.  A letter released today by the Secretary-General, calling on the leaders to give due priority to the issues of poverty and development, had contained two practical short-term actions.  One involved real deals to get the Doha trade agreement back on track with practical concessions in the areas of agricultural subsidies, the provision of generic drugs to fight infectious disease, and the opening of Western markets to all developing-country export.

He said that the second short-term action concerned doubling development assistance quickly.  Since Monterrey, generous commitments had been made by several countries, including the United States and many in Europe, to increase official development assistance (ODA).  That had grown last year, for first time in many years.  He sought to break the negative trend of the 1990s and get a

$17 billion increase by 2006.  While funding for the Goals would come from increased growth in the developing countries themselves, that could only happen if there was an “up front, year-by-year” public investment in development through a doubling of ODA “as quickly as possible”.

Replying to a question about what the prospects were of the G-8 actually endorsing that kind of major movement, he said that a lot of preparatory work for the summit had been directed at constituent parts of the overall targets, such as work on water, Africa, agriculture, and HIV/AIDS.  His message was “go the next step because time was running out for reversing the trend before 2015”.  Investment now would show results five years from now.  To keep the global agenda on track, he would push leaders to “go that extra step” beyond individual initiatives on those sub-components.

He added that the G-8 had traditionally responded to pressure.  Debt relief, for example, was the result of lobbying the Group.  What was new was that the Secretary-General and a senior United Nations figure were joining the lobbyists and the advocates aggressively.

Responding to another question, he said more than 130 countries around the world were asking for UNDP support in terms of technical assistance in support of democratic governance.  In Africa, the UNDP had been a prime supporter of the peer review mechanism on governance of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD).  In addition to supporting many national activities, the UNDP had also supported conflict resolution in West Africa, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Angola.

He would challenge the G-8 leaders to consider that the 1990s in Africa was striking in two ways.  It was the decade in which Africa went from being ruled by unelected leaders to a point where, at one point, every leader in sub-Saharan Africa had been democratically elected.  The trend towards elections had been dramatic.  A less happy trend in the 1990s had been that, rather than respond to that good governance agenda, development assistance had fallen by one third.  So, there had been more democracy and less aid.  That was not the partnership called for at Monterrey.

Correspondents also asked a series of question on Iraq.  Responding to one, Mr. Brown said that the UNDP action plan would be spread throughout the country. It was swooping in to restore capacity where there was a need.  Presently, it was unleashing its capacity from the north and rolling it out along the country.

Regarding the launching of reconstruction efforts now that the resolution on Iraq had been adopted last week, he said that the UNDP had been preparing contingency plans to start the moment reconstruction was authorized.  Unlike humanitarian operations, reconstruction, which implicitly involved the building of a political authority in a country, had required a second resolution.  “We feel free to move very aggressively on a reconstruction agenda”, he said.

He added that it would have been tragic if the ability of the Iraqis to move to self-government and self-sufficiency had been held hostage by the lack of such a resolution.  He had been pleased that the resolution had freed him to work on reconstruction.  Hopefully, by September, there would be enough clarity about the Iraqi budget, to provide donors with a clear picture of the self-financing plans for the country.

Replying to a question about coordination, he said what had been striking to his colleagues returning across the country, both national and international, had been how many of their counterparts were back at their desk and how relationships had been able to resume over critical issues, such as organizing humanitarian assistance.  So, the Iraqi people, far from being invisible, were already on full display and were a very major force in the daily coordination of all activities.  “It was a matter of practically rolling up your sleeves and working together to maximize common efforts”, he added.

To a question about the status of electrical and sanitation systems, he said that it depended on the particular city, but overall some 30 to 50 per cent of those systems had been restored.  The situation was still “pretty risky”, and until much higher levels of capacity was restored, “we’re not going to be out of the woods for a potential public health outbreak”. But, the situation was progressing steadily towards getting those services back up and running.

Asked about whether the “coalition” had been putting any obstacles in the way of UNDP’s ability to operate with a “free hand”, he said that, on the humanitarian side, the basic problem had been one of security.  He was anxious to see the authority “crack the law and order problem” around the country.

He added that the resolution had allowed the UNDP to engage with the authority in discussing ways of support on such issues as developing the rule of law and institutional development.  The authority had understood very clearly what was “for us, the line in the sand, and it had respected it”.  Everyone was anxious to help the Iraqis get back on their own feet.  The resolution had provided a fuller framework to allow for that.

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