Global poverty can be cut in half by 2015 and eliminated by 2025 if the world's richest countries -- including the US, Japan and Germany -- more than double aid to the poorest countries, according to a UN-sponsored report.
It's a matter of life or death for tens of millions of impoverished people, according to the report, released Monday, by 265 of the world's leading development experts.
The so-called Millennium Project initiated by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan spells out the investments needed to meet UN goals adopted by world leaders at the Millennium Summit in 2000 to tackle poverty, hunger and disease and promote education and development, mainly in African and Asian countries.
"What we're proposing is a strategy of investment to help empower the lives of very poor people that lack the tools and sometimes even the basic means to stay alive, much less be productive members of a fast-paced world economy," said Professor Jeffrey Sachs, head of the UN anti-poverty effort and lead author of the report.
The investments range from schools, clinics, safe water and sanitation to fertilizer, roads, electricity and transport to get goods to market.
"The system is not working right now -- let's be clear," he said. "There's a tremendous imbalance of focus on the issues of war and peace, and less on the dying and suffering of the poor who have no voice."
In a world of food mountains, 1 billion people live on US$1 a day or less and 1.8 billion more live on just US$2 a day, many going to bed hungry every night. Life expectancy in the poorest countries is half that in high-income countries, around 40 instead of 80, the report said. And every month, for example, 150,000 African children die of malaria because they don't have bed nets to keep out mosquitos, a tragedy Sachs called the "silent tsunami."
In 1970, the world's nations agreed to provide 0.7 percent of their gross national income for development assistance, and that figure was reaffirmed by the UN conference on financing development in Monterey, Mexico in 2002.
So far, only five countries have met or surpassed the target -- Denmark, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden. Six others have made commitments to reach the target by 2015 -- Belgium, Finland, France, Ireland, Spain and Britain.
But 11 of the 22 richest donors, according to the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, are far from the target and have not set timetables to reach it including the US, Japan and Germany.
If all 22 rich countries come up with the money, more than 500 million people can escape from poverty and tens of millions can avoid certain death in the next decade, the report said.
If the countries kept up the 0.7 percent level of aid-giving for another decade, it said, "by 2025 extreme poverty can be substantially eliminated" for the remaining 500 million people surviving on a dollar a day.
"Our generation for the first time in human history really could see to it that extreme poverty on the planet is ended, not just by half but ended by the year 2025," Sachs said.
"We are not asking for one new promise from any country in the world, only the follow-through on what has already been committed," he stessed.
But trying to get the US and the other rich nations to double or triple the amount of development assistance they now give is expected to be an uphill struggle -- and the target of a major lobbying effort.
The resources to meet the UN goals are definitely within the means of the world's 22 richest nations and their US$30 trillion economy -- about US$12 trillion just in the US, Sachs said.
END OF AN ERA: The vote brings the curtain down on 20 years of socialist rule, which began in 2005 when Evo Morales, an indigenous coca farmer, was elected president A center-right senator and a right-wing former president are to advance to a run-off for Bolivia’s presidency after the first round of elections on Sunday, marking the end of two decades of leftist rule, preliminary official results showed. Bolivian Senator Rodrigo Paz was the surprise front-runner, with 32.15 percent of the vote cast in an election dominated by a deep economic crisis, results published by the electoral commission showed. He was followed by former Bolivian president Jorge “Tuto” Quiroga in second with 26.87 percent, according to results based on 92 percent of votes cast. Millionaire businessman Samuel Doria Medina, who had been tipped
ELECTION DISTRACTION? When attention shifted away from the fight against the militants to politics, losses and setbacks in the battlefield increased, an analyst said Recent clashes in Somalia’s semi-autonomous Jubaland region are alarming experts, exposing cracks in the country’s federal system and creating an opening for militant group al-Shabaab to gain ground. Following years of conflict, Somalia is a loose federation of five semi-autonomous member states — Puntland, Jubaland, Galmudug, Hirshabelle and South West — that maintain often fractious relations with the central government in the capital, Mogadishu. However, ahead of elections next year, Somalia has sought to assert control over its member states, which security analysts said has created gaps for al-Shabaab infiltration. Last week, two Somalian soldiers were killed in clashes between pro-government forces and
Ten cheetah cubs held in captivity since birth and destined for international wildlife trade markets have been rescued in Somaliland, a breakaway region of Somalia. They were all in stable condition despite all of them having been undernourished and limping due to being tied in captivity for months, said Laurie Marker, founder of the Cheetah Conservation Fund, which is caring for the cubs. One eight-month-old cub was unable to walk after been tied up for six months, while a five-month-old was “very malnourished [a bag of bones], with sores all over her body and full of botfly maggots which are under the
BRUSHED OFF: An ambassador to Australia previously said that Beijing does not see a reason to apologize for its naval exercises and military maneuvers in international areas China set off alarm bells in New Zealand when it dispatched powerful warships on unprecedented missions in the South Pacific without explanation, military documents showed. Beijing has spent years expanding its reach in the southern Pacific Ocean, courting island nations with new hospitals, freshly paved roads and generous offers of climate aid. However, these diplomatic efforts have increasingly been accompanied by more overt displays of military power. Three Chinese warships sailed the Tasman Sea between Australia and New Zealand in February, the first time such a task group had been sighted in those waters. “We have never seen vessels with this capability