[Global Poverty] Bolton throws UN summit into chaos

Bush's envoy demands 750 changes to reorganisation plans

Julian Borger in Washington
Friday August 26, 2005
The Guardian

John Bolton, Washington's new ambassador to the United Nations, has called for wholesale changes to a draft document due to go before a UN summit next month aimed at reshaping the world body.

Mr Bolton, a long-standing UN critic who was given a temporary appointment by George Bush three weeks ago after the United States Senate failed to agree on his nomination, has proposed 750 amendments to the draft and called for immediate talks on them.

The 29-page document has been drawn up by a committee under the UN general assembly president, Jean Ping of Gambia, over the past year, during which time several drafts have been circulated.

Critics complained that the US objections had come towards the end of the drafting process, with only three weeks to go before the summit.

But Benjamin Chang, a spokesman for the American team at the UN, said Mr Bolton had simply been restating long-held US opinions. "Those are not new positions; surprise positions," he said. "We've been engaged in this process, since the first meeting."

The Bolton amendments, published in the US press, seek to play down the emphasis given to alleviating poverty, and expunge all references to the millennium development goals, including the target for wealthy countries to donate at least 0.7 % of national income to the developing world. America currently gives less than 0.2% in such aid.

The changes would also scrap provisions in the draft calling for action against global warming, and remove endorsements of the international criminal court and the comprehensive test-ban treaty - both of which are opposed by the Bush administration.

Instead, Washington is pushing for more emphasis on international measures against terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

Mr Ping's office said it was setting up a "core group" of 30 member states, including the US, to begin talks on Monday in an effort to reach agreement on the draft statement before the leaders of more than 170 countries begin arriving in New York on September 14.

"The document was taking good shape," said one European diplomat. "Of course, we wanted to build up some parts without watering down others, but there is a lot of posturing going on at the moment."

The diplomat did not attribute the last-minute nature of the US objections to the arrival of the hawkish Mr Bolton, but suggested: "It's a question of the Americans just getting their act together. Instructions from Washington keep changing."

Mr Chang said the scale and range of the US comments represented the administration's commitment to the future of the organisation.

They were taking the process "very seriously, and we're not apologising for it", he said. "We are treating every step as thoroughly as possible because we contribute a lot to the UN and we expect a lot to come out of this process."

In a letter to his fellow ambassadors, Mr Bolton was quoted as urging quick action on the American proposals.

"Time is short. In order to maximise our chances of success, I suggest we begin the negotiations immediately - this week if possible," he wrote.

Farhan Haq, a spokesman for the UN secretary-general, Kofi Annan, said ferment over the draft statement was a positive sign. "We actually feel fairly confident that member states are taking UN reform seriously," said Mr Haq. "There is stepped-up activity everywhere, and very serious high-level negotiating."

Mr Bolton has said the US would be ready to scrap the deal altogether if no consensus was achieved, leaving only a short statement for the summit to agree on, or to break the agreement into sections to give member states a choice of which parts to support.

But a UN official said yesterday he remained confident that a final agreement could be achieved in time for the summit. "As you get closer to crunch time, the more likely it is that this nation or that nation stakes out a harder position. There's always that kind of tactical negotiation," he said. But he added: "No one wants to have a stalemate that leaves the status quo intact."

[Global Poverty] UN: Growing poverty a threat to stability, report says

New York, 26 August (AKI) - Increasing poverty and a growing schism between the "haves" and the "have nots" continue to pose a major threat to developing democracies around the world, and the resulting economic and social inequality will continue to breed violence and terror if the trend is not reversed, a new United Nations report says.

The report, entitled "The Inequality Predicament", by the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) warned of growing "violence associated with national and international acts of terrorism," which are the result of stark economic and social inequalities, and competition over scarce resources.

Solutions to inequality outlined in the report include addressing economic asymmetries not just within countries but also between them: 80 per cent of the world’s domestic product belongs to 1 billion people living in the developed world, while the remaining 20 percent is shared by 5 billion people living in developing countries.

“This is an especially important because it concentrates on inequality of income as well as inequality in access to basic social services, as well as decision-making,” under-secretary-general for the Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Jose Antonio Ocampo said on Thursday as he introduced the report.

Noting that the report comes 10 years after the 1995 Copenhagen World Summit for Social Development - where world governments pledged to confront profound social challenges and to place people at the centre of development – he said some decade-old social gaps had actually widened, particularly gender disparities.

Although more women and girls were being educated, formal employment figures for women had stagnated or even decreased in some parts of the world. Even more troubling was the sharp increase of women being employed by the informal sector, he added.

The modest gains made in gender equality, education and other areas proved that social mobilisation, particularly civil society engagement, can help raise awareness to social problems and spur action at national and regional levels, he said, noting that the report also stresses the critical importance of boosting access to basic services as one of the most important instruments states had to impact inequities.

The report notes that in a world of increasing development when societies should be reaping the economic benefits of progress, instead many are experiencing alarming increases in the discrepancies between rich and poor.

The United States, Canada and Britain have not escaped this disturbing trend, it said, seeking to nudge both developed and developing countries to take more vigorous steps in the direction of assuring equality while responding to the economic urgency for growth.

In a summary of the report, Ocampo said that “failure to address this inequality predicament will insure that social injustice and better living conditions for all people remain elusive,” and that this trend will continue to lead to social instability in the world.

Socioeconomic strategies should focus on access to resources, social services and the markets that must be incorporated alongside economic development programmes. Economic stimulation without the associated social programmes is inadequate to eradicate the cycle of poverty: “Focusing exclusively on economic growth and income generation as a development strategy is ineffective, as it leads to the accumulation of wealth by a few, and deepens the poverty of many,…and does not acknowledge the intergenerational transmission of poverty,” says the report.

In the final word of his report, Jose Antonio Ocampo says, “The failure to pursue a comprehensive integrated approach to development will perpetuate the inequality predicament, for which everyone pays the price.”

(Slb/Aki)

[Global Poverty] US works to derail world pact on poverty

August 26, 2005
The Washington Post

New York:

Less than a month before world leaders arrive in New York for a summit on poverty and United Nations reform, the Bush Administration has thrown the proceedings into turmoil with a call for drastic renegotiation of a draft agreement to be signed by presidents and prime ministers attending the event.

The US has only recently introduced more than 750 amendments that would eliminate new pledges of foreign aid to impoverished nations, scrap provisions that call for action to halt climate change and urge nuclear powers to make greater progress in dismantling their nuclear arms. At the same time, the Administration is urging UN members to strengthen language in the 29-page document that calls for tougher action to combat terrorism, promote human rights and democracy and halt the spread of the world's deadliest weapons.

The summit, an unusual meeting at the UN of heads of state from around the globe, was called by the UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, to reinvigorate efforts to fight poverty and take stronger steps in the battles against terrorism and genocide. The leaders of 175 nations are expected to attend and sign the agreement, which has been under negotiation for six months.

But Mr Annan's effort to press for changes has been hampered by investigations into fraud in the UN oil-for-food program in Iraq and revelations of sexual misconduct by UN peacekeepers around the world.The proposed US amendments, submitted by the UN ambassador, John Bolton, have been presented this week to select envoys.

The US proposals face strong resistance from poorer countries, which want the UN to focus on alleviating poverty, criticising US and Israeli policies in the Middle East and scaling back UN intervention in small countries that abuse human rights.

"We are looking at very, very difficult negotiations in the days ahead," said Pakistan's UN envoy, Munir Akram. The US has "strong positions and many of us do have very strongly held positions. That's the nature of the game. My only regret is we didn't get into the negotiations early enough."

http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/us-works-to-derail-world-pact-on-poverty/2005/08/25/1124562975569.html

[MDGs] FC Barcelona and Juventus join UN in fight against poverty

Press Trust of India
United Nations, August 24, 2005

Two of Europe's most famous football clubs, FC Barcelona and Juventus Turin, have joined forces with the UN Millennium Campaign in the fight against global poverty.

In their first game of the season, to be played in Barcelona, players from both teams would wear white armbands, as a sign of their support for the fight and the achievement of the Millennium Developments Goals (MDG), a set of goals and targets set by the UN Millennium Summit to drastically reduce several social and economic evils by 2015.

"I am convinced that the time is right to encourage governments, development agencies and communities to think how sport can be included more systematically in the plans to help children, particularly those living in the midst of poverty, disease and conflict," Secretary General Kofi Annan said in a message on the occasion.
Before the start of the game, the players will carry a banner reinforcing their commitment to end poverty and encouraging their fans to join them.

The decision by two of Europe's top teams to endorse the Millennium Development Goals recognizes the unique opportunity these Goals provide to once and for all to end extreme poverty and discrimination, the world body said.

http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_1470672,00070003.htm

[Terrorism] UN warns poverty fuels terror

August 10, 2005

The US Government's neglect of commitments to alleviate global poverty is fuelling the creation of impoverished states that are breeding grounds for terrorism, a United Nations (UN) adviser said.

President George W. Bush's administration has acknowledged poverty's rule in nurturing terrorist hotbeds including Afghanistan, but is failing to meet United Nations' targets designed to raise basic living standards, said Jeffrey Sachs. "The war on terror cannot ever be won if the war on poverty isn't won," said Sachs, the UN Secretary-General's special adviser on the UN Millennium Development Goals. "If we continue this combination of high rhetoric and grossly insufficient action, I think the risks to (the United States') own national security ... and the risk to global stability are very real."

The UN member states committed in 2000 to eight millennium goals that hinge on increases in foreign development aid budgets of individual states to meet specific poverty, disease and environmental degradation reduction targets in the developing world. Most developed nations, particularly the United States, were not meeting these commitments and thus condemning large parts of the developing world, particularly Africa, to economic despair that feeds the growth of international terror networks, Sachs said.

Washington was ignoring a key commitment of raising foreign development aid to 0.7 per cent of gross national product by 2015, he said. US foreign development aid constituted 0.16 per cent of the country's GDP in 2004, Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development data indicates. That compares to the European Union's decision in April to increase development aid to 0.56 per cent of the grouping's gross national income indicator in 2005 to pave the way to achieve the 0.7 per cent target by 2015.

The Group of Eight (G8) industrialized countries decided last month at its summit in Gleneagles, Scotland to increase annual foreign development aid flows by at least US$50 billion as of 2010, with at least half of that increase to Africa. Sachs praised that move, but cautioned that challenges remained in ensuring G8 members honour their commitment. "I have no illusions that even with the promises made at Gleneagles, getting them turned into reality remains a very intense struggle ahead," he said. The five-year review meeting in September that will assess global progress in meeting the UN Millennium Development Goals by their 2015 deadline is a key opportunity for the developed world to redouble efforts to head-off the global destabilizing impact of extreme poverty.

"I'm meeting African leaders throughout the continent that are dynamically and creatively pursuing bold (poverty reduction) strategies and seeking our support that hasn't yet come adequately." Well-spent foreign development aid bolstered by transparent accounting and distribution measures can help reduce poverty in a way that an increasingly fairer global trading system cannot do alone, Sachs said.

"Trade is important, but I visit places that are so cut off from world markets that they aren't really part of the local economy, let alone the world economy," Sachs said.

Source: China Daily
http://english.people.com.cn/200508/10/eng20050810_201426.html

[Asia] Report: 600m Asian kids in poverty

BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) -- Nearly half of Asia's 1.27 billion children live in poverty -- deprived of food, safe drinking water, health or shelter, a development agency said in a report released Monday.

While 600 million children under the age of 18 lack access to one of these basic human needs, more than 350 million are deprived of two or more of these needs, said Growing up in Asia, a report from the child humanitarian organization Plan.

Plan said half of Asia's families were not benefiting from economic growth and globalization. It blamed the pressure of rapid population growth on scarce resources; lack of access to education, healthcare, clean water and sanitation; caste discrimination; and weak governance and corruption.

"Asia has more than twice as many severely deprived children as sub-Saharan Africa. This scale of child poverty will have a serious impact on Asia's future prospects, unless it is addressed now," Michael Diamond, Plan's Asia regional director, said in a news release.

The report said that to combat poverty, the international community needed to reduce subsidies given to U.S., European and Japanese farmers and forgive billions of dollars in debt. It also said richer countries could help by paying more for the goods they buy from developing countries.

Plan has pledged to invest $1 billion on poverty reduction across 12 Asian countries over the next decade.

Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved

Source : http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/asiapcf/08/21/asia.child.poverty.ap/