Press Conference on High-Level Events during First Week

 

of General Assembly’s Sixty-Fifth Session

 

The financial commitments made by Governments, corporations and foundations to development, and the media coverage on such issues during last week’s Millennium Development Goals Summit had surpassed United Nations expectations, Robert C. Orr, Assistant Secretary-General for Policy Planning, said this afternoon during a Headquarters press conference.

“In this environment where Governments are tightening belts at home, to be making additional investments outside their borders is really quite a significant development,” Mr. Orr said.

During the Summit, which had been attended by more than 139 Heads of State and Government, the Secretary-General aimed to increase awareness and renew political commitment to the goals, secure agreement on a concrete action plan for the next five years and give Member States a chance to make specific investment commitments in several key strategic areas.  “Our best estimate on those three fronts is that we did in fact meet the objectives and even exceeded them in some specific cases,” he said.

Among last week’s major announcements, the European Union had committed €1 billion to a fund for the poorest countries to achieve the millennium targets, China had eliminated import tariffs on more products from the least developed countries, and Japan said it would spend $3.5 billion over the next five years on education, Mr. Orr said.

But the biggest gain was in an area significantly lagging behind – women’s and children’s health – which had received more than $40 billion in concrete policy and financial commitments from a broad array of actors, including traditional donors, developing countries, corporations, non-profit groups and philanthropists, he said.

With fresh commitments announced last week, the world was on track to achieve the millennium target on malaria — one of the leading causes of death worldwide, he said.  “The fact that we can see our way to the finish line by 2015 to end deaths from malaria could be one of those major, major stories of the early twenty-first century,” he added. 

On 6 October, the Secretary-General would co-chair a meeting for the Third Replenishment of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.  Last week, France, Canada, Norway and Japan had already jumpstarted that process with announcements of major funding increases, while the United Kingdom had signalled that by 2014 it would triple to £500 million its commitment to wipe out malaria.

Journalists had produced more than 28,000 stories during the week on those announcements and other aspects of the Millennium Development Goals, which traditionally received lukewarm press coverage, Mr. Orr said.  They also had shed light on the plethora of mini-summits and side events that had led to concrete action.

For example, on food security, Governments were more determined than ever to find ways to prevent malnutrition from unravelling huge gains in children’s health, he said.  After the “1,000 Days: Change a Life, Change the Future” campaign to bolster nutrition from the moment a child was conceived through his second birthday, seven countries had issued a joint statement on coordinating efforts in that area.

On climate change, more than 50 ministers had agreed on the need to hammer out during the December conference in Cancun on that subject a balanced package to foster adaptation, technology, fast-start finance, deforestation and appropriate policy.

Nicholas Haysom, Director for Political, Peacekeeping and Humanitarian Affairs in the Executive Office of the Secretary-General, said that, during the some 100 bilateral meetings with the Secretary-General last week, many Heads of State and Government had lauded that and other high-level summits for being particularly timely and well targeted.

For example, the meeting on Sudan had warned the parties concerned that the upcoming referendum on Southern Sudan must be conducted peacefully and that all must abide by its results and plan for its consequences, and that they could not afford to ignore the humanitarian situation in Darfur.

The meeting on Pakistan had mobilized new support for emergency relief for the flood victims there, as well as for the nation’s long-term recovery, Mr. Haysom said.  The Secretary-General had used it as an opportunity to appoint Turkish diplomat Rauf Engin Soysal as his new Special Envoy for Assistance to Pakistan.  (See Press Release SG/A/1264)

During discussions on Somalia, where the security situation was deteriorating, the Secretary-General had called for bolstered support for the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) and the Transitional Federal Government, while saying the Organization would do its part by adding more staff in Mogadishu, Puntland and Somaliland.

Ahead of a critical week for the Middle East peace process, the Secretary-General had chaired a meeting of the diplomatic Quartet and a wider meeting of Arab partners, in a bid to help the parties avoid a breakdown in talks, he said.

The meeting of the Group of Friends on Myanmar, he noted, had given key international players the chance to take stock of concerns prior to the November elections.  And during high-level meeting on revitalizing the work of the Conference on Disarmament, ministers had expressed frustration over the inertia on disarmament negotiations, particularly for nuclear disarmament, in the past 13 years.  (See Press Release DCF/457)

Asked about new donors for programmes to improve women’s and children’s health, Mr. Orr said the momentum-building among philanthropists and Governments worldwide to bolster funding in that area was getting everyone to invest more at a time when it was not expected.  The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation had committed $1.5 billion; Johnson & Johnson and Glaxo-Smith Kline were donating massive amounts of de-worming medication.  Also, the Carlos Slim Foundation was making a major commitment in the Americas, as were other non-traditional donors elsewhere, which would make it possible to better supply and deliver services on the ground.  As health concerns were at the heart of development — if a woman died during childbirth, her family members were 10 times more likely to die prematurely — those commitments would make a real difference.

Concerning Government accountability in fulfilling pledges on maternal health, all Member States had welcomed the new Global Strategy for Women’s and Children’s Health and they had agreed on an accountability framework process led by Margaret Chan, Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO).  The process did not just involve traditional donors making good on their commitments and recipient developing countries spending it wisely; it had brought international non-governmental organizations, which were largely influential in that area, into the accountability equation.  Ms. Chan had already made concrete strides, holding 10 meetings on the framework process last week.  By September 2011, the United Nations should break the current logjam on accountability and achieve concrete results from the framework process.

Asked if the United Nations was very pessimistic about the future of Haiti, Mr. Orr said no.  The task now was to bring Haiti back to where it was just before the earthquake in January, when it was well positioned to make an economic breakthrough.  The challenges ahead for long-term recovery were formidable, particularly during the current rocky political period, but Haiti could stay on track if the international community delivered on its pledges.

On how to improve the situation in Somalia, Mr. Haysom said the immediate focus should be on ensuring implementation of commitments to strengthen AMISOM, train the Transitional Federal Government’s security forces and bolster its outreach activities and service delivery.

At to whether the international community had failed entirely on Myanmar, Mr. Haysom noted a sense of resignation that it would not be able to convince the Government there to significantly restructure the election process before the elections in November.  The United Nations would continue to do everything possible to bring credibility, transparency and inclusiveness to that process, including enabling opposition leader Aung Sang Suu Kyi to be on the ballot.  But increasingly, the focus was on whether developments after the elections would offer real opportunities for constructive engagement.  

Asked about the focus on Iran, which had received intense media attention in the United States, Mr. Haysom said it was of major concern to the United Nations, but it was being addressed in the context of discussions among the “E‑3 + 3” or “P‑5 + 1” (United States, France, United Kingdom, China, Russian Federation and Germany).

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For information media • not an official record