Rich and poor countries must make an enduring political effort to push through recent commitments to strengthen development agendas and improve governance in developing countries, despite “powerful vested interests,” as well as conclude a counter-terrorism convention soon, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said Tuesday.
Addressing two dozen members of the Global Colloquium of University Presidents meeting at Princeton University, Mr. Annan said the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), issued at the UN in September 2000, have helped to stimulate major new commitments from all countries.
The commitments include not only “aid and debt relief from rich countries, amounting to a doubling of aid for Africa, but also from developing countries themselves, which gave very important commitments to transform their governments and their spending priorities, starting with an undertaking to produce, by the end of this year, national strategies for reaching the MDGs by 2015,” he said.
– But in both rich and poor countries it will require a sustained political effort to push these commitments through the political system, against powerful vested interests, he noted adding:
– And a similar effort is needed to achieve a breakthrough in the Doha Round of negotiations on trade, giving developing countries a real chance to compete in the global market.
The World Trade Organization’s “Doha Round” aims to maximize the contribution of international trade to raising living standards, eradicating poverty and generating employment in developing countries. The latest session of the Round ended in Hong Kong in December.
Mr. Annan expressed the hope that the strengthened UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) would be able to review and coordinate the implementation of this development agenda, holding annual ministerial-level assessments of progress.
National leaders at the worlds largest summit ever last September also instructed the General Assembly to develop, adopt and implement a comprehensive global counter-terrorism strategy in this 60th General Assembly session and their representatives would shortly continue their attempt to do so, he said.
In many of the areas where change is needed, most of the road map to the goal is in place, with just a few crucial pieces still missing, Mr. Annan said.
– The question is, do we have the collective will and determination to move ahead boldly on the road that has been mapped? he concluded.
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