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| International-UN-NGOs |
| UN Unveils Action Plan to Save Millions of Lives |
| 2005-01-17 |
| Posted under the International - UN - NGO's section because Fred won't give us a Wank-o-matic Section. ;-) More than 500 million people can escape abject poverty, 250 million people will no longer go to bed hungry and 30 million children can be saved if rich countries double development aid over the next 10 years to $195 billion, a new U.N.-sponsored report said on Monday. The 3,000-word plan written by 265 experts says the money should be spent on both long-term projects and quick fixes, such as supplying mosquito bed nets and creating free school lunch programs. These would enable countries to meet global goals to combat poverty, hunger and disease that all nations promised at a U.N. summit in 2000. "The goals are not utopian. They are eminently achievable," said U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan in accepting the report from Jeffrey Sachs, a Columbia University professor and lead author of the survey, labeled as the most comprehensive ever on global poverty. The Millennium Development Goals, agreed on by all nations in 2000, include halving extreme poverty and hunger for at least 1 billion people living on $1 a day, reversing the spread of AIDS and malaria and providing basic education by 2015. The new report lays out plans for achieving those goals by setting deadlines for specific, often simple, projects that experts say have been proven to work, rather than just calling for scattershot aid. They include providing fertilizer for farmers, fixing roads or eliminating school fees as well as opening markets to goods from poor countries. "The system is not working right now," Sachs said. "It has taken too long to figure out an approach that will work." The report, "Investing in Development," commissioned by Annan, is to be presented to the Group of Eight countries meeting in July and to world leaders in September at the U.N. General Assembly, which is expected to set a global development agenda. Government aid from rich countries should amount to $135 billion in 2003, rising to $195 billion in 2015 or about 0.54 percent of these nations' GNP, about twice the current level to reach the Millennium goals, the report said. World leaders have agreed on 0.7 percent of GNP for development aid for the Millennium goals and other projects. UNITED STATES LAGGING But the United States with its $12 trillion economy would have to raise its contributions considerably. Although the United States is the largest donor in the world, it contributes the smallest proportion of its GNP to development aid among 22 industrial nations. Washington spends some 0.16 percent or $25 billion and to reach a target of 0.7 percent of its GNP, it would have to spend $80 billion. Japan, the world's second largest economy, is also low at 0.20 percent as is Italy at 0.17 percent, and Germany at 0.27. Among industrial nations, only Denmark, Norway, Sweden, the Netherlands and Luxembourg have spent more than the world target of 0.7 percent of their gross national product. Britain, Belgium, France, Finland and Ireland have made promised to reach the target before 2015. "We are not asking for one new promise from any country in the world, only to follow through on what has already been committed," Sachs told a news conference. "We have the world's eyes focused on the tsunami of the Indian Ocean," he said. "But the world continues to overlook the silent tsunamis of deaths from malaria which take every month the number of people that died in the Asian tragedy." Mosquito bed nets, for example, are cheap and could be distributed easily to save children from dying of malaria. "There is no black market for mosquito nets," Sachs said, acknowledging that many nations feared corruption. The report says there are anywhere from a dozen to three dozen nations in Africa and Asia that could be put on a fast track for aid immediately. But for nations like Belarus, Myanmar, North Korea and Zimbabwe, whose political leaders are widely criticized, "there is little case of large scale aid," the report said. Aid should be channeled through humanitarian groups, who can monitor progress on the ground. Middle-income developing nations, like China, Brazil, Mexico, Malaysia and South Africa, can afford the programs. Former Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo, a contributor to the report, said Latin America whose growth had slowed over the past 30 years still needed to reorder his priorities to wipe out deep pockets of poverty in many nations. This is where Chirac's "tax" suggestion comes in, I believe... |
| Posted by:.com |
| #8 Although the United States is the largest donor in the world, it contributes the smallest proportion of its GNP to development aid among 22 industrial nations. I'd love to smack the author of this article in the hopes of knocking the envy out of this person. Really. This "proportion" blathering got old the first day it was trotted out. |
| Posted by: Bomb-a-rama 2005-01-17 9:50:33 PM |
| #7 The 3,000-word plan written by 265 experts... International Bureaucratic Efficiency strikes again! |
| Posted by: Parabellum 2005-01-17 6:33:06 PM |
| #6 "There is no black market for mosquito nets" Yet. |
| Posted by: Pappy 2005-01-17 5:50:44 PM |
| #5 If you want maximum effectiveness for your charity, it makes sense to eliminate the middle man. G'bye, Kofi. |
| Posted by: Fred 2005-01-17 5:48:56 PM |
| #4 What're you gonna call it Kofi? Kojo Industries? |
| Posted by: tu3031 2005-01-17 5:16:15 PM |
| #3 JM-The Organization for the Redistribution of Wealth. The new UN motto: "You got it? We can steal it for humanitarian use." |
| Posted by: Jules 187 2005-01-17 5:05:04 PM |
| #2 United States with its $12 trillion economy would have to raise its contributions considerably. Here you go kids, a prime example of taxation without representation. Wonder how my ancestors would have handled it. FU Kofi |
| Posted by: JerseyMike 2005-01-17 5:00:59 PM |
| #1 Eliminate third-world corruption, tribalism and Islam, and you can accomplish the same thing-- and much, much more-- quicker and easier. These countries aren't the shitholes they are because we're not doing enough for them: they're the shitholes they are because they're not willing to do what they need for themselves. |
| Posted by: Dave D. 2005-01-17 4:59:26 PM |