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Africa: Monterrey Promises, 2
Africa: Monterrey Promises, 2
Date distributed (ymd): 020320
Document reposted by Africa Action
Africa Policy Electronic Distribution List: an information
service provided by AFRICA ACTION (incorporating the Africa
Policy Information Center, The Africa Fund, and the American
Committee on Africa). Find more information for action for
Africa at http://www.africaaction.org
+++++++++++++++++++++Document Profile+++++++++++++++++++++
Region: Continent-Wide
Issue Areas: +economy/development+ +US policy focus+
SUMMARY CONTENTS:
This posting contains excerpts from a briefing paper on poverty
reduction released by Oxfam International on the eve of global
Financing for Development Conference being held this week in
Monterrey. The Oxfam paper serves as one benchmark for the enormous
gap between the rhetoric of world leaders, including new promises
rolled out for Monterrey, and the reality of actual resources
delivered for public investment to address global inequality.
A related posting also distributed today contains a brief statement
by Africa Action on issues neglected or ignored at Monterrey, as
well as a recent action alert on the privatization of water in
Ghana - an illustration of how policies imposed by "donors" in the
guise of "reform" in fact add additional burdens on the poor and
undermine the purported commitment to poverty reduction.
The official Financing for Development conference site, with live
webcast, speeches, and other documents, is available at:
http://www.un.org/ffd
+++++++++++++++++end profile++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Oxfam Briefing Paper
Last Chance in Monterrey: Meeting the Challenge of Poverty
Reduction
Oxfam International 2002
March 2002
Oxfam International is a confederation of twelve development
agencies that work in 120 countries throughout the developing
world. Oxfam International Advocacy Office, 1112 16th St., NW, Ste.
600, Washington, DC 20036 Phone 1.202.496.1170, Fax 1.202.496.0128,
E-mail: advocacy@oxfaminternational.org, http://www.oxfam.org
[Excerpts only. The full report can be found, in downloadable Word
format, on the Oxfam International web site: http://www.oxfam.org]
13 March 2002
Summary
The International Conference on Financing for Development, to be
held in Monterrey, Mexico, from 18-22 March, provides a last
opportunity to mobilise the financial resources needed to achieve
the internationally agreed Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
Failure to grasp that opportunity will result in millions of
avoidable child deaths, act as a brake on poverty reduction, and
reinforce already obscene inequalities between rich and poor.
The Millennium Development Goals call for universal primary
education, the halving of world poverty, and a two-thirds reduction
in child deaths, with the targets to be achieved by 2015. Each of
the MDGs is achievable but only with political resolve in poor
countries, backed by an adequate flow of resources from rich
countries.
On present trends, all the MDGs will be missed by a wide margin.
Dozens of countries are off-track. If present trends continue,
there will be 10 million child deaths in 2015, compared with a
target of 4.6 million. The cumulative gap between MDG target rates
for reducing child mortality and present trends amounts to 56
million additional deaths between 2000-15.
Trend is not destiny. All of these outcomes, and the vast loss of
potential and suffering associated with them, are avoidable. But
without a renewed aid effort, it will be too late to achieve the
MDGs.
Various estimates have been made of the costs of achieving the
MDGs. The World Bank suggests an indicative range of $40-60bn in
additional aid per annum. While difficult to calculate exactly how
much money is needed, the estimates made are in Oxfam's view
significant understatements of the resources needed. The real cost
of achieving the MDGs by 2015 will be approximately $100bn in extra
aid per annum.
The headline figure is large, but affordable. Ten years ago, donors
pledged to spend 0.7 per cent of their GNP on aid. Had they met
this target, they would now be spending an extra $114bn. Instead,
they have cut their aid budgets, to 0.22 per cent of GNP. Per
capita aid to sub-Saharan Africa, the region that is furthest off
track for the 2015 goals, fell from $34 to $20 in the second half
of the 1990s.
The financing requirements for achieving the 0.7 per cent target
are modest in relation to government expenditure. The average
increase in government spending required for the G7 countries would
be around 1.4 per cent.
Northern governments should set a five-year time frame for
achieving the 0.7 per cent aid target. This would generate $130bn
a year in additional financing by 2007 sufficient not just to
achieve the MDGs, but to sustain a broader campaign against
poverty. ...
The current political background gives little cause for optimism.
Several major donors including Italy, France, Germany, and Japan
have been cutting aid. Others, notably the US, are allowing aid
programmes to stagnate at exceptionally low levels. Britain has set
an encouraging trend by increasing aid. However, its performance
falls far short of the standards required for a country seeking to
provide leadership. ...
Some Northern governments have stressed that 'trade not aid' should
be the dominant theme at the conference. That approach is
disingenuous on two counts. First, rich countries have failed to
open their markets to poor countries. Second, increased aid is
vital for the world's poorest countries if they are to grasp the
opportunities provided through trade.
Oxfam is calling on each OECD government to agree to the following:
- The international donor community should establish a five-year
timeframe for reaching the 0.7 per cent of GNP aid target
- Each low-income and middle-income country should develop clear
plans to realise the MDGs and work with donors in estimating the
financing required
- The donor community should fully finance the $10bn Global Fund to
Fight AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria, and the wider programme
advocated by the Commission on Macroeconomics and Health
- Donors should act on their commitment to ensure that no national
strategy for achieving universal access to good quality education
fails for want of finance by developing a global initiative on
education. This would cost an extra $13bn per year.
Two years ago, rich-country governments joined their counterparts
in the developing world in making a solemn pledge to win the war
against poverty. It is time to redeem that pledge. Since the
terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001, Northern governments have
embarked on a war against the evils of terrorism. But they have yet
to commit themselves seriously to the war against the evils of mass
poverty, disease, and illiteracy.
The Monterrey conference provides an opportunity to make that
commitment. Northern governments have a choice. They can continue
the current practice of using UN summits to deliver large volumes
of rhetoric on poverty reduction, devoid of any financing
commitments. Or they can commit themselves to the investments in
poverty reduction, health, and education that could transform the
lives of poor people, creating the foundations for shared
prosperity. At a time when globalisation is on trial as never
before, they cannot afford to fail.
Background
...
Sixty years ago, the Marshall Plan laid the foundations for the
social and economic recovery of Europe after the Second World War.
Its architect warned that shared prosperity and collective security
in one part of the world could not be protected if mass poverty and
hunger reigned elsewhere. Political leaders of the day also had the
vision to act.
Contrasts with today are striking. While governments in the rich
world seldom miss an opportunity to offer rhetorical commitments on
poverty reduction, they have collectively cut aid budgets to their
lowest-ever levels in real terms. Today, they are spending 0.22 per
cent of their GNP on development assistance, one-fifth of the level
provided to Europe under the Marshall Plan. While the world's poor
may figure prominently in the pre-Monterrey rhetoric of Northern
governments, they are conspicuous by their absence from the
priorities that guide budget allocations.
Starved of financial resources, strategies to close the huge gaps
in health, education, and living standards between rich and poor
are failing. The prosperity generated by globalisation in one part
of the world has gone hand in hand with mass poverty elsewhere. ...
Failure to act will reinforce inequalities between rich and poor
countries, and call into question the willingness of Northern
governments to support more inclusive forms of globalisation. While
private capital flows to poor countries are increasing, those
countries with the most entrenched poverty are being bypassed. ...
Sub-Saharan Africa faces particularly acute problems. Data can
express in statistical terms the gap between MDG targets and
current trends. But behind the numbers are millions of preventable
child deaths, tens of millions of children denied an opportunity
for education, and a vast loss of potential associated with
poverty.
Considerations of social justice, moral imperatives, and
self-interest combine to make an overwhelming case for decisive
action at Monterrey. Unfortunately, none of the proposals so far
tabled by Northern governments are even remotely commensurate with
the scale of the challenge.
1 Missing the targets
The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were a concrete expression
of what governments described as their 'collective responsibility
to uphold the principles of human development'. They endorsed a
broad set of targets for 2015, including the halving of extreme
poverty (using 1990 as a base year), a two-thirds reduction in
child poverty (again with 1990 as a base year), and universal
primary education. If actual outcomes are used as a measure of
performance, governments are demonstrably failing to discharge
their collective responsibility. While human welfare has continued
to improve, it has done so at rates falling far short of those
required.
Child mortality and health
Nowhere is this more apparent than in relation to child mortality.
Using UNICEF data, Oxfam has charted trends in child mortality
against the rate of improvement required to achieve the 2015 goal.
The picture that emerges is a disturbing one.
In the year 2000, there were 10.9 million deaths among children
below the age of five. If the world were on track for achieving the
MDGs, that figure would have been 8.9 million. In other words, the
gap between the 2015 target rate and the actual child death rate
was equivalent to around 2 million child deaths. That gap will have
doubled by 2015. On current trends there will be 9.6 million child
deaths in that year, compared with an MDG target of 4.2 million
(Figure 1). The cumulative total of additional child deaths between
2000-2015 resulting from the widening gap between the MDG target
rate and current trends will amount to 56 million a massive loss of
life.
There are striking regional variations in these trends. The gap
between trend and target rates is widest in sub-Saharan Africa. In
1990, the region accounted for just under one-third of child deaths
worldwide. By 2015 that share will have climbed to 55 per cent.
While South Asia is reducing child mortality more rapidly than
Africa, it too is off-track for the 2015 goal. If present trends
continue there will be 2.5 million child deaths in 2015, compared
with a target of 1 million under the 2015 scenario.
The bleak prospects for child mortality reflect a failure to
address both old challenges and new threats. Acute respiratory
tract infection and diarrhoea both continue to kill more than two
million people a year. Most of the victims are children almost all
of them are poor. Among the new threats, the magnitude of the
HIV/AIDS epidemic far exceeds the worst expectations of a decade
ago. It is estimated that 40 million people are infected. Over 16
million of the victims are women and another 1.4 million are
children under the age of fifteen. HIV/AIDS is one of the most
powerful barriers to achieving the 2015 targets in Africa, where it
is now the leading cause of death. An estimated 25 million people
in the region are living with the disease.
Poverty-related malnutrition is at the heart of the failure to
accelerate progress in child mortality. There have been advances.
UNICEF estimates suggest that the prevalence of malnutrition fell
from 32 per cent to 28 per cent in the 1990s. However, progress has
been uneven and inadequate. In sub-Saharan Africa, almost one-third
of children suffer from malnutrition, which is the same proportion
as ten years ago (with the actual number of cases increasing). In
South Asia malnutrition rates have been falling, but even so, the
1990s ended with almost half of all children suffering
malnutrition.
Women continue to face disproportionate health risks. Over half a
million die each year from problems related to pregnancy and
childbirth. For every death, 30 more women are estimated to suffer
serious injury and infection. Almost half of these deaths occur in
sub- Saharan Africa, and another one-third in South Asia. In
sub-Saharan Africa, women face a 1 in 13 chance of dying in
childbirth, compared with a risk of 1 in 4,085 in industrialised
countries. While there are serious problems in measuring maternal
mortality trends, evidence suggests that there has been little
change since the early 1990s.
Progress in child and maternal mortality is intimately linked to
improved access to water. Around one-half of the developing world's
population some 2.5 billion people lack access to basic medical
goods and services, or to safe water and sanitation. Lack of access
to water contributes directly to death and illness. It is
implicated in the deaths of the 2.2 million people from diarrhoea,
the vast majority of them children. Poor sanitation is also linked
to the problem of intestinal worms. These afflict an estimated 400
million school-age children, contributing to malnutrition, anaemia,
and an impaired ability to learn.
...
The financing gap
Various attempts have been made to estimate the additional aid
costs of achieving the MDGs. According to the World Bank an extra
$40-60bn in additional aid will be required for the next 15 years.
This is broadly consistent with the estimate of the Zedillo report,
which was prepared in advance of the Financing for Development
conference at the request of the UN Secretary General.
Any attempt to estimate costs for achieving the MDGs includes an
element of speculation. However, both of the above exercises err on
the side of understatement, almost certainly by a very wide margin.
The World Bank's estimates understate the cost of achieving the MDG
health goals, and associated investments in water and sanitation.
Drawing on the World Bank's own data, supplemented by estimates
carried out for the Commission on Macroeconomics and Health, Oxfam
estimates the real costs to be closer to $100bn (see table 1).
Table 1
Additional aid financing requirements ($bn)NHalving income poverty 46
Reaching MDGs for public health 32
Universal primary education (including incentives for girls
education) 13
Access to water 9
Total 100
The costs of this investment in human development have to be
assessed against the potential benefits, both human and economic.
According to the Commission on Macroeconomics and Health, aid
investments equivalent to 0.1 per cent of the GNP of industrialised
countries could avert eight million deaths a year by 2015. Using
what it acknowledges as extremely conservative estimates, the
Commission suggests that the increased wealth generated by improved
health would represent three times the costs of increased health
spending by rich and poor countries. ...
Closing the financing gap: a five-year schedule for achieving the
0.7 per cent target
An important question for the Monterrey conference is whether or
not the financing requirements for achieving the MDGs are
affordable. The answer is an unequivocal 'yes'. While all
rich-country governments face budget constraints, none would be
unable to meet the UN target of spending 0.7 per cent of GNP on aid
if this were a political priority.
When the world's governments met at the Earth Summit in Rio de
Janeiro in 1992, they adopted a programme for action Agenda 21
setting out policies for combating poverty and improving living
standards. Northern governments agreed to finance their share of
the costs of these policies, partly by raising aid to 0.7 per cent
of their GNP.
In the decade since the Earth Summit, aid spending has declined
substantially. According to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation
and Development (OECD), official development assistance
has fallen by one-third as a share of donor GNP, to 0.22 per cent
(Figure 2). Only five donors the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway,
Sweden, and Luxembourg have achieved the 0.7 per cent target. How
big is the shortfall against the promise made at the Earth Summit?
If all OECD governments were spending 0.7 per cent of their GNP on
development assistance, aid flows would be $114bn higher.
The world's largest economies the Group of Seven have led by bad
example. In terms of per capita spending, only Japan was spending
more on aid at the end of the 1990s than at the start of the
decade. Countries such as the United States, Canada, Italy, and
Germany have cut per capita aid by one third or more (Figure 3).
The United States, the world's wealthiest economy, allocates only
0.1 per cent of GNP to aid, which is less than half of the OECD
average. In aggregate terms, net official development assistance
fell from $67.5bn in 1994 to $59.1bn in 1999. Although it coincided
with a surge in private capital flows to developing countries, very
little of that capital was directed to the poorest countries. Just
15 countries receive over 80 per cent of private capital flows.
Thus the countries most dependent on aid have suffered major
losses. Aid per capita fell from $34 to $20 in sub-Saharan Africa
in the second half of the 1990s, and halved in South Asia over the
same period. ...
In the most far-reaching proposal under consideration in the run-up
to Monterrey, the Commission of the European Union called on its
members to undertake a commitment to raise aid/GNP ratios to 0.33
per cent of GNP by 2006. However, even if adopted by all OECD
members, the EU proposal would generate only $12bn in additional
aid each year far short of the requirements for achieving the MDGs.
... the required increases in aid spending are relatively modest.
Excluding the United States, the current gap between aid spending
and the spending that would be required to reach the 0.7 per cent
target is equivalent to around one per cent of government
expenditure. For the United States, the figure is just under two
per cent.
... rich countries clearly have the financing capacity to support
achievement of the MDGs. Whatever the rigours of the stability
pact, the EU spends 25 per cent more subsidising farmers through
the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) than it spends on development
assistance. Most of the $35bn allocated to the CAP provides
subsidies to large commercial farms and corporations. If the same
amount were allocated to development assistance, it would be
possible to more than double the aid effort of EU member states and
reach the 0.7 per cent target.
The United States would face a bigger challenge than Europe in
financing its commitment to the MDGs. Our estimates suggest that
the US would need to mobilise an additional $11bn a year in order
to reach the 0.7 per cent goal within five years...
As in Europe, the US budget commitment to big farmers and powerful
agricultural interests is in stark contrast to the lack of
commitment to the world's poor. The USAID programme for global
public health provides vital support to developing countries and
poor communities in the fight against infectious diseases and
preventable child deaths. Yet the $1.3bn allocated to this
programme is equivalent in financial terms to the agricultural
subsidies transferred in 2000 to the state of Texas. ...Over half
of the $21bn in US agricultural subsidies is directed towards the
wealthiest eight per cent of farms.
This material is being reposted for wider distribution by
Africa Action (incorporating the Africa Policy Information
Center, The Africa Fund, and the American Committee on Africa).
Africa Action's information services provide accessible
information and analysis in order to promote U.S. and
international policies toward Africa that advance economic,
political and social justice and the full spectrum of human rights.
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