THE global campaign to eradicate poverty picked up fresh support at last week鈥檚 United Nations World Summit, when leaders of 150 nations pledged their commitment to the UN鈥檚 Millennium Development Goals.
Created five years ago to improve the lot of the world鈥檚 poor, the MDGs established for the first time a set of specific targets to be achieved by 2015. 鈥淭hey let us move beyond the question of whether it should be health or education or environment. We need all of that, and it needs to be addressed in an integrated way,鈥� says Guido Schmidt-Taub, associate director of the UN Millennium Project, which oversees the goals.
Five years on, the results have been mixed (see Graphs). Much of Asia 鈥� especially China and India 鈥� has made excellent progress on targets such as reducing hunger and child mortality, so the world as a whole may be on course to achieve some of the goals, says Schmidt-Taub. But this masks a serious shortfall in other regions, especially sub-Saharan Africa, where not a single country is on track to meet any of the goals.
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Before the summit many delegates were pessimistic. The US had proposed deleting any mention of the MDGs from the summit鈥檚 consensus statement and opposed references to other specific performance goals, such as a target for wealthy nations to give 0.7 per cent of their GDP in development aid by 2015. 鈥淚t looked pretty hopeless for a while,鈥� says Hugh Wilkins, a Toronto-based policy adviser for the conservation organisation WWF International.
But after an outcry from many other nations the US backed down, and the final statement backs the MDGs. It also lauds the 0.7 per cent target, although the US did not make a formal commitment to it. However, in his address to the summit, President George Bush committed the US to the MDGs for the first time. 鈥淣ow there is absolutely no doubt that the MDGs are the operational framework that we all share,鈥� says Schmidt-Taub.
The summit鈥檚 other big advance, says Schmidt-Taub, is the commitment of developing countries to devise specific plans by 2006 to achieve the MDGs. No developing country has yet done this, largely because they have not been able to count on support from richer countries. 鈥淭hey have been forced to think too small, and too short-term,鈥� says Schmidt-Taub. Now that the UN has given the specific go-ahead, countries may be more willing to tackle the problems.
Despite this, some critics are concerned that the apparent progress may be little more than hot air. 鈥淲hat we wanted was a bold agenda from governments to meet and even exceed the MDGs,鈥� says Nicola Reindorp, who heads the New York office of Oxfam International. The anti-poverty organisation wanted clear timetables on when the 0.7 per cent target would be reached. 鈥淲hat we got was largely recycled promises or recycled commitments, and a restatement of past promises.鈥�
鈥淲ithout a bold agenda from governments, some critics are concerned the apparent progress is little more than hot air鈥�
In the end it will be up to individual nations to follow through on their promises, says Calestous Juma, an international development specialist at Harvard University. 鈥淲hat I will be watching is not the summit, but what governments do when they get home.鈥�