Verdens 48 mest udsatte og fattige nationer er helt afhængige af udviklingshjælp – det kan al snak om den private sektors rolle ikke skjule, mener en række deltagere i fredagens FN-topmøde.
ISTANBUL, 13 May 2011: Participants at a United Nations summit Friday outlined a 10-year plan to support the world’s most vulnerable countries overcome poverty.
The Istanbul Programme of Action to spur development and economic growth was made public at the end of the Fourth UN Conference on the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) after five days of discussions in the Turkish city.
The summit focused on ways to harness the potential of the 48 countries – many of them in sub-Saharan Africa – classified as LDCs so that they can lift themselves out of poverty and develop economically.
Rich countries should make more determined efforts to fulfill and even increase aid commitments to the world’s poorest countries.
Despite much talk of using the private sector as an engine of growth and a provider of jobs, the Istanbul programme of action makes clear how much the world’s 48 least developed countries rely on foreign aid and why aid is of primary importance for them.
“While the least developed countries have made considerable efforts to mobilise domestic resources for their development, most of them still face a huge financing gap,” says the 46-page action programme, “and ODA (official development assistance) continued to be the largest source of external financing for [their] development.”
KLAR BESKED TIL DONORLANDENE
The Istanbul declaration therefore sends an unequivocal message to donors for them to meet and exceed current aid targets.
The conference said donor countries providing more than 0,20 per cent of their GNP as official aid to LDCs should continue to do so and maximise their efforts to further increase aid levels. As for those donors who have met the 0,15 per cent target, they should undertake to reach 0,20 per cent “expeditiously”.
All other donor countries that have committed themselves to the 0,15 per cent target should reaffirm their commitment and undertake to achieve the target by 2015 or to “make their best efforts to accelerate their endeavours to reach the target”.
The Istanbul conference met to consider progress among LDCs since the last plan of action set out in Brussels 10 years ago.
SKEPTISKE NGOER
Civil society groups (NGO´s) fear it will be much harder to make headway in the next few years, at a time of continued global weakness after the 2008 financial meltdown.
– If the world was unable to implement the Brussels plan during the good years, how will it be possible after financial chaos in the lean years ahead. It will be an enormously testing time for LDCs, said Barry Coates, executive director of Oxfam, New Zealand, who was attending the Istanbul conference.
The US said ODA flows increased from 12 billion US dollar to 38 billion between 2001 and 2008, “but delivery was modest compared to least developed countries’ structural constraints, multiple vulnerabilities and needs”.
Coates, however, was sceptical that donor countries would pay much attention to what comes out of Istanbul.
– The LDCs are bearing the brunt of crises they did not cause – from financial and food speculation, climate change and water scarcity, he said.
– It is deeply disappointing that the developed nations failed to agree anything tangible to prevent these crises and protect LDCs from the consequences, other than more of the promises to meet aid targets that they have broken repeatedly in the past 30 years. Unfortunately, the urging of countries to boost their aid is all too familiar. Broken promises are the norm, noted the OXFAM representative.
Achieving that goal will be a tall order, as the conference pointed out the lack of movement in the past decade, noting:.
“While the Brussels programme of action has had a positive role to play in the development process of the least developed countries … the improved economic performance in some least developed countries had a limited impact on employment creation and poverty reduction. In many least developed countries structural transformation was very limited, and their vulnerability to external shocks has not been reduced.”
MANGE PÆNE ORD I SLUTDOKUMENT
The conference said progress has been made towards fulfilling commitments on duty-free, quota-free market access for products originating in LDCs, but other serious obstacles to trade remain, including non-tariff barriers that are inconsistent with World Trade Organisation rules and obligations.
As expected, the conference called for substantial efforts for an early and successful conclusion of the Doha trade round, which has staggered on for about 10 years.
The programme of action emphasizes the strengthening of the productive capacity in LDCs – building infrastructure, enhancing human capital and governance capabilities.
Economic reforms in many poor countries over the past decade have led to favourable business environments, and a boom in the prices of the primary commodities in the international markets have resulted in rates of growth that exceeded both worldwide and developing countries’ averages.
Cheick Sidi Diarra, the UN High Representative for the LDCs, Landlocked Developing Countries and Small Island Developing States, also noted the valuable role of the private sector in defeating poverty.
– Private sector orientation of the economy is of particular importance, but the private sector is not enough to bring wealth to the common men and women in the countries, particularly the LDCs. That’s why this plan of action comes up with a balanced role between what the State has to do and what the private sector has to do.
70 PROCENT UNDER 30 ÅR
Donor countries committed to supporting programmes to improve the capacity of the youth through providing them with skills, jobs opportunities and health care.
An estimated 70 per cent of LDCs’ population are people under the age of 30, Mr. Diarra said, adding they had an “untapped potential” to give impetus to their countries’ economic growth.
Donor countries made commitments to come up with special investment support to encourage corporations in the developed world to invest in poorer countries. The incentives could include tax exemptions, assured market access and investment protection, Mr. Diarra said.
Developed countries also agreed to support national disaster reduction and mitigation programmes in LDCs, and to facilitate South-South transfer of “lessons learned” on disaster preparedness.
Futher, the conference has set an ambitious goal of halving the number of LDCs in the next decade, although only three have “graduated” since LDCs were established as a UN category in 1971.
With a population of 880 million, the LDCs represent the poorest and weakest group in the international community.
The conference resolved to work out a smooth process from transitioning from the LDC category when countries attain the required social development benchmarks, saying States have in the past been reluctant to “graduate” for fear of losing the benefits associated with being a member.
The LDCs and their development partners committed to ensuring good governance, rule of law, human rights, gender equality and women’s empowerment and inclusive democratic principles.
The conference was attended by 7.000 participants, including government delegates, senior UN officials and representatives from other international agencies and non-governmental organizations (NGOs).
BISTANDEN TIL LDC-LANDENE
Increasing aid to the world’s 48 least developed countries is a key target of millennium development goal 8, which aims to “develop a global partnership for development”.
And under the 2001 Brussels programme of action, the world’s top aid donors agreed to give between 0,15 per cent and 0,20 per cent of gross national income in aid to LDCs by 2010.
By 2009, nine countries had already met their commitments: Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and the UK.
But the remaining 14 member countries of the OECD’s development assistance committee (including top donors the US, France and Germany) had yet to meet their targets.
Data on aid flows from 2010 – that will show which countries did or did not meet the 2010 deadline – will be released in December.
Kilde: OECD
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