Myanmar faces a tough task to eradicate extreme poverty and meet other global development goals, while political instability is holding back Thailand’s progress, the UN development chief said.
In an interview, Helen Clark also said Vietnam had “a pretty good story to tell” about its efforts to achieve the so-called Millennium Development Goals, but faces a major challenge from climate change and rising sea levels.
Clark said military-ruled Myanmar, with “huge poverty,” would find it difficult to meet any of the eight development goals by the 2015 global target.
“It would be tough,” Clark, administrator of the UN Development Programme (UNDP), said on Tuesday on the sidelines of a conference.
The former New Zealand prime minister said Myanmar had the lowest foreign aid per capita of any developing country, and “political factors” restrict what the UNDP can do there, “so it’s not so easy to make progress there at this time.”
Myanmar, which has detained democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi for most of the past two decades, is under EU and US sanctions.
Neighboring Thailand has made reasonable progress in tackling poverty, Clark said, but further development is being hindered by political tensions.
Outbreaks of violence in Bangkok during two months of anti-government protests from March until last month killed 90 people, wounded nearly 1,900, and left the country deeply divided.
“Clearly, instability holds back a country’s development progress, and you end up punching below your weight when you could be punching to, or above, your weight,” she said.
The unrest followed more than three years of political instability after the army seized power from former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra in a 2006 bloodless coup.
“Things haven’t been stable since and I think what’s really needed is a national dialogue on how to move to elections which are seen as free and fair and people will accept the result,” said Clark, who assumed her post in April last year.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has called a September summit in New York to accelerate efforts toward reaching the 2015 development goals deadline.
Clark said Vietnam would be able to report good progress toward the goals of eradicating extreme poverty and hunger, achieving universal primary education and reducing child and maternal mortality.
The country has work to do to combat HIV/AIDS and add to the existing progress on access to water and basic sanitation, she said, while the environmental cost of old-style industrialization also needs to be addressed.
However, fast-growing Vietnam, which this year is set to attain “middle-income” status, faces a “huge challenge” from climate change, Clark said.
“And I believe that the government is acutely aware of this, aware now that Vietnam is one of the most exposed countries in the world to rising sea levels, intensity and frequency ... of adverse weather events like typhoons,” she said.
‘GREAT OPPRTUNITY’: The Paraguayan president made the remarks following Donald Trump’s tapping of several figures with deep Latin America expertise for his Cabinet Paraguay President Santiago Pena called US president-elect Donald Trump’s incoming foreign policy team a “dream come true” as his nation stands to become more relevant in the next US administration. “It’s a great opportunity for us to advance very, very fast in the bilateral agenda on trade, security, rule of law and make Paraguay a much closer ally” to the US, Pena said in an interview in Washington ahead of Trump’s inauguration today. “One of the biggest challenges for Paraguay was that image of an island surrounded by land, a country that was isolated and not many people know about it,”
DIALOGUE: US president-elect Donald Trump on his Truth Social platform confirmed that he had spoken with Xi, saying ‘the call was a very good one’ for the US and China US president-elect Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) discussed Taiwan, trade, fentanyl and TikTok in a phone call on Friday, just days before Trump heads back to the White House with vows to impose tariffs and other measures on the US’ biggest rival. Despite that, Xi congratulated Trump on his second term and pushed for improved ties, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said. The call came the same day that the US Supreme Court backed a law banning TikTok unless it is sold by its China-based parent company. “We both attach great importance to interaction, hope for
‘FIGHT TO THE END’: Attacking a court is ‘unprecedented’ in South Korea and those involved would likely face jail time, a South Korean political pundit said Supporters of impeached South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol yesterday stormed a Seoul court after a judge extended the impeached leader’s detention over his ill-fated attempt to impose martial law. Tens of thousands of people had gathered outside the Seoul Western District Court on Saturday in a show of support for Yoon, who became South Korea’s first sitting head of state to be arrested in a dawn raid last week. After the court extended his detention on Saturday, the president’s supporters smashed windows and doors as they rushed inside the building. Hundreds of police officers charged into the court, arresting dozens and denouncing an
‘DISCRIMINATION’: The US Office of Personnel Management ordered that public DEI-focused Web pages be taken down, while training and contracts were canceled US President Donald Trump’s administration on Tuesday moved to end affirmative action in federal contracting and directed that all federal diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) staff be put on paid leave and eventually be laid off. The moves follow an executive order Trump signed on his first day ordering a sweeping dismantling of the federal government’s diversity and inclusion programs. Trump has called the programs “discrimination” and called to restore “merit-based” hiring. The executive order on affirmative action revokes an order issued by former US president Lyndon Johnson, and curtails DEI programs by federal contractors and grant recipients. It is using one of the
RSS