Sixty-second General Assembly

Plenary

63^rd Meeting (PM)

URGENT ACTION NEEDED ON ANTI-POVERTY GOALS, MILLIONS OF LIVES ‘HANG IN THE BALANCE’

SAYS GENERAL ASSEMBLY PRESIDENT, AT MEETING ON DEVELOPMENT

 

President of Economic and Social Council Notes Some Positive Trends,

But Says Many Countries Remain Off Track, Particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa

Although achieving the Millennium Development Goals was still possible in most parts of the world, General Assembly President Srgjan Kerim, of The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia today warned that for some developing countries, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, there was a clear need for urgent and concerted global political action, or many millions of people would never realize the basic promises of the Goals, which aim to slash poverty, hunger, disease and illiteracy by 2015.

“We now have a crucial window of opportunity:  we have reached the midpoint to the target date for achieving the MDGs in 2015 and there is a real need to accelerate progress,” he declared in a statement delivered by Assembly Vice-President Andreas Mavroyiannis of Cyprus, to a special meeting focused on development.  He added that the ability of partner and donor countries to deliver on the promises made at the Millennium Summit would be a reflection of their leaders’ commitment to multilateralism and to building greater trust among the wider global community.  “Progress is possible.  Above all, we must demonstrate the political will.  Millions of lives quite literally hang in the balance,” he said.

He said the Millennium Goals, and other internationally agreed development objectives, the outcomes of the 2002 International Conference on Financing for Development and the 2005 World Summit had made an unprecedented contribution to focusing attention and action on the global fight against poverty and the promotion of human development for all.  In many regions, some progress had been made, but in sub-Saharan Africa, absolute poverty had risen over the last decade.  A recent World Bank figure showed that only a third of the countries in that region would achieve a single Millennium objective by the 2015 target date.

At the same time, there were positive signs, and some countries were demonstrating progress towards the Millennium Goals was possible when strong Government leadership, good policies and healthy institutions were combined with adequate financial and technical support from the international community.  “We must also take into account the way economies grow, and the impact on the global climate and our international development goals,” he said, adding that climate change was an issue of justice, since it was the world’s poorest who would suffer the most, but were the least responsible for it.

Dalius Čekuolis of Lithuania, President of the Economic and Social Council, highlighted the results of the Council’s first Annual Ministerial Review, held this past July, as it related to advancing the United Nations development agenda.  While there were encouraging declines in poverty and “positive movements” in some other areas, including access to education and health care, many countries remained off track in meeting the Millennium Development Goals, especially in sub-Saharan Africa.

The overall picture showed uneven progress across and within countries.  The main message of this year’s Ministerial Review:  the strategy for achieving the development agenda was working, but not on the scale required.  It must be expanded to enable all to share in the success.  To that end, meeting the Goals required multi-sectoral approaches, he said, urging developing countries to elaborate and implement national development strategies, as called for in the 2005 Summit.

Those strategies must be aligned with the development agenda, national efforts, and with a broad-based approach to macroeconomic policies, he said.  Such initiatives must be supported by adequate financing, and there was a need to accelerate progress towards a development-friendly outcome to the Doha Round of trade negotiations.  The Review’s ultimate concern was how to help countries make progress in meeting the Goals, and that basic concern should shape the Organization’s overall contribution to peacebuilding.

Five key policy messages had emerged, he said, noting that national development strategies were working, but implementation must be accelerated and scaled up.  The global partnership should be made more effective, while the global economic environment should be “pro-development” and “pro-poor”.  Monitoring implementation of commitments should be strengthened, while emerging threats, such as climate change, should be urgently addressed.  He added that the theme of the 2008 Review would be “Implementing the international agreed goals and commitments in regard to sustainable development”, which would encompass the pillars of economic growth, social development and environmental protection.

Pakistan’s representative, speaking on behalf of the Group of 77 developing countries and China, said the Assembly should be further strengthened as the highest intergovernmental mechanism coordinating and integrating policy matters following major United Nations conferences and Summits.  Noting the current global economic slowdown and the growing sense of unease about the state of the world’s economy, he said the trend was not as acute as originally anticipated, due to the strength of some of developing countries’ economies. 

That fact reinforced the case for concerted efforts towards unleashing the “latent economic potential of developing countries” and revealed the economic interdependence of the developing and developed world.  Another important lesson from the globalized world economy and the looming financial crisis was the growing vulnerability of developing countries to actions taken in the developed world that developing countries could not control.

Despite the strong economic performance of a number of developing countries in 2006, many countries were still stuck in the poverty trap, he continued.  They lacked productive capacity, depended on a single commodity, were vulnerable to economic turbulence and unattractive to investors.  In light of that, efforts to highlight the inextricable linkages between peace and development should be redoubled.  That was the central role the United Nations could and should play in advancing the broad development agenda, and in promoting a genuine and enhanced global partnership for development. 

Stressing that the response to development challenges lay in multilateral institutions, the representative of the United Kingdom said the United Nations needed better coherence across the whole system to ensure that poor countries got more from the huge sums of money channelled through the Organization’s system.  To that end, the successes from the eight “One UN” pilots should be replicated, and the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank should also change the way they applied conditionality, and move towards fairer governance that gave developing countries more voice. 

The key to progress was political will, he said.  Last summer, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown had launched the Millennium Development Goals “Call to Action” with Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, 14 heads of Government and 21 private sector leaders, which had agreed that no country or group of countries could address the situation alone.  In September next year, his country would ask the global partnership to come together at the highest level, at the United Nations, to accelerate action towards the Millennium Goals.  The United Kingdom would like to see a top-level event during the general debate –- possibly on 25 September -– to bring the Millennium Development Goals back to the centre of world attention. 

That event would showcase success stories and highlight the private sector’s transformative power at increasing growth and reducing poverty.  It would highlight both where progress was being made, and where significant gaps remained and much more progress was needed.  The meeting should fit around next year’s many big development meetings, and the call to action would work alongside the objective of those meetings to raise the profile of the Millennium Goals.

Also speaking today were representatives of Portugal (on behalf of the European Union), Saudi Arabia, Mexico, Cuba, India, Qatar, Brazil and China.

The General Assembly will reconvene at 10 a.m. Monday, 10 December to hold its annual review of matters related to Oceans and the Law of the Sea.

Background

The General Assembly convened this afternoon to hold a special meeting focused on development and follow-up to the Millennium Summit.

Statement by General Assembly President

Assembly Vice-President ANDREAS MAVROYIANNIS (Cyprus), delivering a statement on behalf of Assembly President Srgjan Kerim, said that development was one of the three main pillars of the United Nations work.  This morning, a special dialogue on development had been held with participants from academia, civil society, the United Nations system and Member States.

At that event, Deputy Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro had spoken about the work she is leading on behalf of Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to improve the effectiveness and coherence of the Organization’s development activities, including the activities of the Africa Millennium Development Goals Task Force.  Distinguished economist Jagdsh Bagwati and Professor Joseph Stiglitz had given their assessments of emerging trends that would affect worldwide efforts to achieve the Millennium Goals by 2015.  “By being better informed and engaging substantively in contemporary issues, we bolster the international standing and authority of the General Assembly,” he added.

In a globalized economy, no country or company could insulate itself entirely from international risks.  “If a problem does happen, we need to be able to deal with it quickly to maintain confidence,” he said, adding that the current instability in the financial markets demonstrated the sheer scale of global financial flows, and how quickly what happened in one part of the world could affect everyone.  Robust global growth that was resilient to economic shocks and sustainable over the long-term was the best catalyst for development and the achievement of the Millennium Goals.  “In the last 30 years, no country has reduced poverty without also increasing trade and national wealth,” he added.

He went on to say the Millennium Development Goals, and other internationally agreed development objectives, the outcomes of the 2002 International Conference on Financing for Development and the 2005 World Summit had made an unprecedented contribution to focusing attention and action on the global fight against poverty and the promotion of human development for all.  In many regions, progress had been made on some of the Goals, but in sub-Saharan Africa, absolute poverty had risen over the last decade.  The most recent figures from the World Bank suggested that only a third of the countries in that region would achieve a single Millennium objective by the 2015 target date.

At the same time, there were some positive signs, and some countries were demonstrating progress towards the Millennium Goals was possible when strong Government leadership, good policies and healthy institutions were combined with adequate financial and technical support from the international community.  “We must also take into account the way economies grow, and the impact on the global climate and our international development goals,” he said, adding that climate change was an issue of justice, since it was the world’s poorest who would suffer the most, but were the least responsible for it.  Indeed, the Human Development Report warned that the poor faced the most immediate and severe costs of climate change, with the threat of “unprecedented reversals” in poverty reduction, health and education.

“We now have a crucial window of opportunity:  we have reached the midpoint to the target date for achieving the MDGs in 2015, and there is a real need to accelerate progress,” he declared, adding that the ability of partner and donor countries to deliver on their promises was a reflection of the international community’s commitment to multilateralism, and to building greater trust among the wider global community.  He said he looked forward to Member States’ assessment of progress made in the previous year, and what could be expected going forward.  “Progress is possible.  Above all, we must demonstrate the political will.  Millions of lives quite literally hang in the balance,” he said.

DALIUS ČEKUOLIS ( Lithuania), President of the Economic and Social Council, discussed the results of the Council’s First Annual Ministerial Review, held this year, as it related to advancing the United Nations development agenda.  While there were encouraging declines in poverty and “positive movements” in some areas, including access to education and health care, many countries remained off track in meeting the Millennium Development Goals, especially in sub-Saharan Africa.  The overall picture showed uneven progress across and within countries.  The main message of this year’s Ministerial Review:  the strategy for achieving the development agenda was working, but not on the scale required.  It must be expanded to enable all to share in the success.

To that end, meeting the Goals required multi-sectoral approaches, he said, urging developing countries to elaborate and implement national development strategies, as called for in the 2005 Summit.  Those strategies must be aligned with the development agenda, national efforts, and with a broad-based approach to macroeconomic policies.  Such initiatives must be supported by adequate financing, and there was a need to accelerate progress towards a development-friendly outcome to the Doha Round of trade negotiations.

Various challenges had hampered efforts to eradicate poverty and hunger, he continued.  The global physical environment continued to deteriorate, with increasing evidence that climate change was reaching a “tipping point”.  The incidence of HIV remained at about 4 million per year.  The Review had provided a platform for discussing the impacts of such challenges.

He said the Council had adopted a Ministerial Declaration, which highlighted the issue of climate change and the decline in official development assistance in 2006.  While the Declaration showed the global community was unified in addressing the Goals, it also noted that nine out of 10 countries with the lowest human development indicators had experienced conflict since 1990, and were very far from achieving development objectives.  The Review’s ultimate concern was how to help countries make progress in meeting such goals, and that basic concern should shape the Organization’s overall contribution to peacebuilding.

Five key policy messages had emerged, he said, noting that national development strategies were working, but implementation must be accelerated and scaled up.  The global partnership should be made more effective, while the global economic environment should be “pro-development” and “pro-poor”.  Monitoring implementation of commitments should be strengthened, while emerging threats, such as climate change, should be urgently addressed.

The high number of countries that had volunteered to be reviewed by the Council next year highlighted the Council’s role as the central forum for reviewing development goals, he said.  The biennial high-level Development Cooperation Forum, to be convened for the first time next year, would help ensure that cooperation was guided by a shared set of goals, and its most valuable asset was its universal legitimacy, which ensured broad participation by all stakeholders.  Its challenge would be to provide ample opportunity for developing countries to express their views, while also ensuring that developed countries continued their support.

He said the theme of the 2008 Review would be “Implementing the international agreed goals and commitments in regard to sustainable development”, which would encompass the pillars of economic growth, social development and environmental protection.  That would provide an opportune occasion to adopt a more effective strategy for addressing those areas.  The first Review had added value as a platform to define continuing challenges, and enabled the Council to bring individual conference follow-up processes together to ensure coherence of policy and action.  A striking sign this year had been the emergence of a new Council, as the force for propelling effective implementation of the agenda.  Scaling up implementation efforts had never been more crucial.  In that regard, he urged States to work collectively, and he looked forward to today’s deliberations.

FARUKH AMIL (Pakistan), speaking on behalf of the Group of 77 developing countries and China, said the General Assembly should be further strengthened as the highest intergovernmental mechanism coordinating and integrating policy matters following major United Nations conferences and Summits.  Noting the current global economic slowdown and the growing sense of unease about the state of the world’s economy, he said this slowdown was not as acute as originally anticipated, due to the strength of some of developing countries’ economies.  That fact reinforced the case for concerted efforts towards unleashing the “latent economic potential of developing countries”, and revealed the economic interdependence of the developing and developed world.  Another important lesson from the globalized world economy and the looming financial crisis was the growing vulnerability of developing countries to actions taken in the developed world that developing countries could not control.

Despite the strong economic performance of a number of developing countries in 2006, many countries were still stuck in the poverty trap, he said.  They lacked productive capacity, depended on a single commodity, were vulnerable to economic turbulence and unattractive to investors.  In light of that, efforts to highlight the inextricable linkages between peace and development should be redoubled.  That was the central role the United Nations could and should play in advancing the broad development agenda, and in promoting a genuine and enhanced global partnership for development. 

Stressing that the Group had long argued for comprehensive reform of the international financial system and its governance structure, he said reform must encompass:  liquidity creation, including special drawing rights; official development assistance; debt; and foreign direct investment and portfolio investment.  Despite promises of an additional $50 billion in official development assistance, its decline and a heavy reliance on debt cancellation and restructuring was of serious concern.  Appropriate measures to overcome the technological gap between the developing and developed countries should also be adopted, and, in this, the global intellectual property rights regime should also be reviewed.

He said the Group would have liked to use the meeting to assess the progress over the previous year in the global economic situation, and to make recommendations to avoid the global slowdown.  Further, it would have liked to have this meeting earlier in the General Assembly session during the general debate, when world leaders were attending.  Monitoring implementation by Member States, organizations and other actors of agreed goals and commitments was an important dimension of the United Nations developmental role.  Yet, implementation remained the Achilles heel of United Nations development cooperation efforts –- and consideration of steps to redress the situation should be given.

JORGE DE LEMOS GODINHO ( Portugal), speaking on behalf of the European Union and associated States, said that at the midpoint year of achieving the Millennium Development Goals by 2015, and faced with a mixed record in implementing them, the United Nations had made great strides in keeping those issues on the international agenda.  Events such as the first Annual Ministerial Review and the launching of the Development Cooperation Forum would contribute to the revitalization of the General Assembly and the Organization as a whole, as well as to the follow-up on the outcomes of the major United Nations conferences and summits. 

He emphasized the European Union’s commitment to the global partnership for development, the basis of which was that each country took primary responsibility for its own development.  In that, the central role of national policies and development strategies could not be overemphasized.  Efforts to reach internationally agreed development goals should be undertaken in an integrated way that promoted efficiencies and reduced duplication and unnecessary competition.  The European Union was making a number of efforts to implement the Monterrey Consensus and had set new and ambitious targets for official development assistance to Africa.  He reaffirmed the European Union’s previously stated positions on development assistance.

Saying that Africa was the heart of the European Union’s development policy, he noted that the continent had great potential –- a fact indicated by new economic and political success in the last decade.  Yet, the continent still had continuing problems, including poverty, armed conflicts, corruption, failing States, lack of economic development, inadequate social infrastructures, poor education standards, social exclusion, slow progress on gender issues, environmental degradation and the HIV/AIDS pandemic.  All of those challenges decreased the standard of living and limited the capacity of some African countries to adapt and respond to climate change.  The Union was keen to assist African countries in addressing those issues, and it would outline a long-term shared vision of the future of European Union-Africa relations in a globalized world in the Joint Strategy that would be adopted at the second European Union-Africa Summit later this week.

Health was also an essential component of the Millennium Development Goals, and one of the main priorities of European Union development policy, he said.  It was firmly committed to ensuring that developing countries -- particularly least developed countries -- had access to essential medicines at the lowest possible prices.  The Council of the European Union had recently accepted an amendment to the trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights, to that end.  The Union also strongly supported a rapid, ambitious and pro-poor completion of the Doha Development Round and Economic Partnership Agreements between the Union and Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific (ACP) Countries. 

He said the Union would also continue to prioritize support to the least developed and other low-income countries to achieve more balanced global development.  It would develop a special partnership with Cape Verde, which would graduate from the group of least developed countries in January, and congratulated Samoa on its impending graduation, as well.  Noting the detrimental role that climate change played in poverty reduction, he said the Union’s Consensus on Development emphasized environment and biodiversity as a key pillar of its development cooperation.  Adaptation to climate change needed to be part of policy investment decisions by all relevant actors, and climate change should be fully integrated into strategies for poverty reduction.

TAREK AL-FAYAZ ( Saudi Arabia) said this was an occasion for the Assembly and its Member States to reaffirm their dedication to fulfilling the Millennium objectives and targets by the 2015 target date.  For its part, Saudi Arabia had and would continue to assist developing and least developed countries in eradicating poverty, as well as in building their capacity to mitigate natural disasters.  The Kingdom had set up a $1 billion fund to help developing countries with their poverty eradication efforts, and had continued to work with United Nations and regional organizations in that area, including the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), and the Global Fund to Combat HIV/AIDS, Malaria and Tuberculosis.  It had also established several national and regional health improvement and poverty alleviation programmes under its Gulf Economic Fund.

He said his country had also set up a sustainable development fund at the most recent Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) meeting last month, as a testament not only to its seriousness about that issue, but also to show that oil was a source for development and renewal, not just tension and conflict.   Saudi Arabia was also keen to assist developing countries in their efforts to combat climate change, and to tackle other development challenges, such as maternal and child mortality and education.  At the same time, Saudi Arabia would call on the international community to ensure a global financial framework that accepted and promoted the participation of developing countries.

That would require transparency and accountability in international trade regimes, as well as real efforts to ensure that developing countries’ goods and services were given equal status in the global market place.  Finally, he stressed that worldwide peace and stability hinged on improving the lives and livelihoods of the people of the developing world, and called on the international community to stand by its obligations to ensure the achievement of globally–agreed development objectives, and to continue to follow the path of political dialogue to solve disputes.

CLAUDE HELLER ( Mexico) said the World Summit outcome document recognized the need to meet the challenges and opportunities resulting from the migratory phenomenon.  Finding effective solutions had become a real challenge, and Mexico placed a priority in that area.  Each of the manifestations of migration could be found in Mexico, as it was a country of origin, destination, return and transit.

As those flows would continue, the global community had a duty to find solutions that addressed the causes of migration.  Mexico had expressed in bilateral, regional and multilateral fora the need to promote a new, comprehensive understanding of migration.  In that context, it was essential to replace short-term answers with those that were long-term and comprehensive.  Markets could not be the only reference point for determining the scope of policies, which was particularly important in guaranteeing non-discrimination against migrants.

Mexico welcomed the results of the first World Forum on Migration held in Brussels, he said.  That event would contribute to the Second World Forum, to be held next year in the Philippines.  His Government had proposed a close link between the Forum and the United Nations, and had highlighted the importance of enriching the debates with various actors.

He was concerned that migrants’ needs did not always go hand in hand with the recognition of human rights.  States must develop migration laws with full respect for migrants and their families.  The growing link between migration and security must take account of international humanitarian law, with a view to changing an approach based strictly on the principle of sovereignty.  Any programme that did not address the human rights component would be incomplete.  He urged States and the United Nations to ensure that discussions were held within the framework of the Organization, and reflected in actions consistent with the Charter.

Finally, Mexico was promoting a draft resolution that recognized the need to establish a closer link between the United Nations and the Forum, and had suggested measures to promote greater exchange of information.  He urged States to support that initiative.

ANA SYLVIA RODRGUEZ ABASCAL ( Cuba) said that, sadly, it was no secret the Organization’s development agenda was falling short, as poverty, marginalization and underdevelopment continued to suffocate developing countries.  Those countries were also afflicted by conflict, poor sanitation and undrinkable water.  The future looked equally grim for the billions of people living on the margins, particularly since developing countries were barely represented in the global marketplace.

Unless the developed world got serious about ending poverty, eradicating deadly diseases, promoting gender equality and ensuring sustainable development for all, the Millennium Declaration and the outcomes of the 2005 World Summit and other global conferences would remain merely “words on paper”.  Indeed, the Millennium Declaration itself would represent nothing more than a “lovely but unachievable dream”.

If the international community really wanted to meet those objectives, it must set aside political discussions, when necessary, and move to action.  All should know that, despite promises that had been made at the Millennium Summit, official development assistance had continued to fall.  The serious drop over the past year was obvious, even though the developed countries had tried, through “slight of hand”, to factor debt cancellation into the equation.  People were not statistics, she said.  The bulk of the planet’s population was being held prisoner to an unjust and unsustainable global order.  She hoped the discussion today would help put development issues back at the heart of the global agenda.

JOHN SAWERS ( United Kingdom), associating his country with the statement made by Portugal on behalf of the European Union, said development was central to the United Kingdom Prime Minister’s vision of what the United Nations and the multilateral system was for.  No delegation could question how seriously the United Kingdom took the issue of international development.  It was the world’s second largest donor, and its Overseas Development Assistance would increase to 0.56 per cent of its gross national income –- or $18 billion a year –- by 2010-2011 before rising to 0.7 per cent by 2013. 

He said aid volumes should not be the only focus, however.  While developing countries had long argued the importance of growth and economic self-sufficiency, donors had not always supported that aspiration as much as they should have.  Yet, no country had reduced poverty in the last 30 years without also increasing trade.  Thus, the promise of the Doha trade round should be delivered.  Poor countries needed a good deal now.  Countries should also be equipped to compete effectively, and to integrate into the global marketplace.  Unless the international community also tackled climate change and assisted poor countries in adaptation, it would not just fail to meet development targets, but would ensure that poor countries remained impoverished.

Stressing that the response to development challenges lay in multilateral institutions, he said the United Nations needed better coherence across the whole system to ensure that poor countries got more from the huge sums of money channelled through the Organization’s system.  To that end, the successes from the eight “One UN” pilots should be replicated, and the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank should also change the way they applied conditionality and move towards fairer governance that gave developing countries more voice. 

The key to progress was political will, he said.  Last summer, the British Prime Minister had launched the Millennium Development Goals Call to Action with the Secretary-General, 14 heads of Government and 21 private sector leaders, which had agreed that no country or group of countries could address the situation alone.  In September next year, his country would ask the global partnership to come together at the highest level, at the United Nations, to accelerate action towards the Millennium Development Goals.  The United Kingdom would like to see a top-level event during the general debate -– possibly on 25 September -– to bring the Millennium Development Goals back to the centre of world attention.  That event would showcase success stories and highlight the private sector’s transformative power at increasing growth and reducing poverty.  It would highlight both where progress was being made, and where significant gaps remained and much more progress was needed.  The meeting should fit around next year’s many big development meetings, and the call to action would work alongside the objective of those meetings to raise the profile of the Millennium Development Goals.

NIRUPAM SEN ( India) said today’s meeting should have been held earlier in the session.  He first discussed the International Monetary Fund, saying that there was a “genocidal overhang” of the Fund’s adjustment policies, and a process that could only be described as “accumulation by dispossession”.  The Fund had been created as a result of “gerrymandering”, and the system urgently needed reform.  It was important for developing countries to have an increased voice, and unless gross domestic product was calculated by examining purchasing power parity, rather than on exchange rates, the Fund’s quota system could not change.  There should be periodic review of the Fund by the United Nations.

On the Millennium Development Goals, he said they had come at a time when the United Nations had lost its role in setting the world’s economic agenda.  The old doctrine –- that countries should have an industry in the world market –- had been replaced by totally free trade.  Bretton Woods institutions were keen to advise on governance, while they were neither accountable nor democratic.  Noting that, “if you have a hammer, then all the problems become nails,” he said it was important to “move beyond the Goals” to tackle the causes of problems.

The biggest barrier to doing that was the intellectual property rights regime, which ensured that developing countries were shut out from the benefits of technology flow.  He urged examining what that regime was doing to biodiversity and generic medicines, as biopiracy existed, and genetic materials had become private property.  Citing Nobel economist Joseph Stiglitz, he said through the intellectual property rights regime, “we are signing the death warrant of thousands”.  The United Nations must take a central role in setting the economic agenda, yet even setting up a committee to examine the regime was difficult thorough the Second Committee’s resolutions.

Moreover, modification of the intellectual property rights regime was needed in addressing climate change, he asserted.  Climate scientists had calculated that the age of globalization –- more than any other age –- was responsible for the mass extinction of species.  Unless the United Nations took such issues seriously, the “hypnotic spell” of consensus would ensure that nothing was done.  It was important to take creative action.

On official development assistance, he said levels were at 0.3 per cent, short of the 0.7 per cent target.  The composition of that assistance was for debt and disaster relief, preventing the flow required to get countries out of poverty.  Further, there was no private investment in the social sector, where it was needed.  Countries were doing what they could through South-South cooperation, but the developed world could make a real difference.  On debt, he said from 1980 to 2006, $7.7 trillion had been paid by developing countries.  On trade and the Doha Round, he said unless agricultural subsidies were eliminated, farmers in developing countries would continue to be disadvantaged.  The cards being dealt to the developing world were extremely difficult.  The Economic and Social Council, through the Development Forum and the Annual Ministerial Review, could play a greater role.  He appealed to States to examine such issues.

HASSAN MANSOUR RASHED AL-KHATER ( Qatar) said the main bodies of the United Nations should give equal focus to both peace and security and development issues.  It was becoming ever clearer that there could be no peace without development, and no development without peace.  The international community must work together to ensure globalization for all, including achievement of the Millennium Goals.  At the same time, the United Nations must continue its own reforms to better promote and implement the global development agenda.  The Organization must lead the international development effort, particularly at a time when hundreds of millions of people worldwide were living in poverty and lacked access to sanitation and clean water.  The situation in sub-Saharan Africa was particularly grim, with most countries there unlikely to achieve any of the Millennium Goals by the target date.  While it was necessary for the international community to work together on poverty eradication, it was equally necessary to ensure cooperation on revamping global trade markets and international financing schemes.

PIRAGIBE TARRAGO ( Brazil) said lifting people out of poverty, granting universal access to health care and education and rectifying gender inequalities were some of the “greatest challenges of our time”.  Achievement of the Millennium Development Goals would, therefore, shape the world for generations to come, and that was why Brazilian President Lula da Silva had lent his support to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s proposal to convene a global “stocktaking” on implementation of the Goals next year.  Indeed, Brazil believed that a stocktaking of that nature could not be static, nor could it be exclusively focused on past achievements or challenges.  It only made sense for such a survey to identify the current main factors that would advance or hinder achievement of the Goals.  Since those factors had disparate impacts on the process, it was also critical to clearly prioritize the most crucial among them.

He said examples of certain initiatives had shown that concerted action could achieve concrete results.  By example, he noted that the Action Against Hunger and Poverty campaign, launched by Brazil, Chile, France and Spain during the fifty-ninth General Assembly, had led to the UNITAID, an international drug facility, which aimed to provide access to drugs to fight AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis.  Just one year after its inception, UNITAID had already disbursed more that $250 million in 80 countries.  He went on to highlight other factors for development Brazil found crucial, including trade, official development assistance and debt cancellation.

Among others, he stressed that meaningful progress in agricultural goods trade held the key to poverty reduction in the developing world.  He said President Lula had been personally involved in the efforts to bring the Doha trade round to a successful conclusion.  At the same time, consensus would not be reached unless some developed partners “overcame immobility”.  Further, increasingly important South-South trade, stimulated by the Global System of Trade Preferences, could not be used to divert the focus of the Doha negotiations.  He added that domestic development efforts should not take place in a void.

Given that a global economic environment conducive to growth remained critical, Brazil attached crucial importance to global macroeconomic stability.  At the same time, financial turbulence shed real light on the issue of voice and participation of developing countries and transition economies in the decision-making processes of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.  Real change in the representation and effectiveness of those institutions depended on a new, simple and transparent quota formula, having gross domestic product as a natural cornerstone, he said.

LIU ZHENMIN ( China) recalled that, since the 1990s, a series of important international conferences and summits on development had convened, notably the 2000 Millennium Summit, which identified the Millennium Development Goals, and the 2005 World Summit.  While the creation of new wealth and advances in science and technology were welcome developments, it was disturbing that gaps among nations, and between rich and poor, were widening.  As things stood today, implementation of the Goals gave no reason for optimism, and that of the Monterrey Consensus was also not satisfactory.

He said the global community should take effective measures to follow through on existing commitments, redress imbalances in development and speed implementation of the Goals.  Emphasis should be placed in five areas.  It was crucial for countries to draw up development strategies suited to their national conditions.  Developing countries had made progress, in that regard, and the global community should take full account of their special needs, while also leaving enough “policy space” for them in establishing the rules of the game.

Further, the issue of development should be resolved in a comprehensive manner, he said.  Developed countries must help developing countries through increased assistance, debt relief, the opening of markets and transfer of technology.  Also, the global community must reach consensus on climate change and turn efforts to tackle the phenomenon into an opportunity for accelerating development.  To that end, States must formulate plans under the principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities”.  South-South cooperation should play a complementary role, and States should encourage that cooperation, without placing expectations too high.  The international economic regime should be improved, to ensure that globalization benefited all nations.  Developing countries needed an increased voice in the international finance and trade system.  He urged opposing trade protectionism and working towards the creation of an open and fair multilateral trading system.

For its part, China had done what it could to help developing countries improve capacity, he said.  Recent years had seen progress in economic and technological cooperation between China and other developing countries, particularly through expanded trade and investment.  Chinese President Hu Jintao announced at the Beijing Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation last year eight policy measures to strengthen China’s cooperation with African nations, which were being implemented “across the board”.  Concluding, he said all counties shared a common responsibility to implement the outcomes of major United Nations conferences.

* *** *

For information media • not an official record