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UN Calls For Policies With "human face" |
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Friday, 31 October 2008 16:14 |
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Investments in social and economic developments hold the keys to the attainment of the globally accepted targets to stem poverty, a senior official at the UN said last Tuesday.
Isabel Ortiz, senior Interregional Advisor at the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs said the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) - set by world leaders in 2000- needed to be supported by policies that have a human face.
"UN is saying invest in economic and social developments," she said adding the world should be aiming for human dignity by putting policies that respond to the people.
Ortiz proposes a paradigm shift in thinking where growth and equity will be achieved through active promotion of national development.
Ortiz says poverty reduction required equitable economic and social policies not micro-interventions adding that "it is not about putting a well in a village".
Ortiz said half of the world was living below the US$2 per day poverty line at a time developing countries were financing the developed countries.
She said Sub Saharan Africa had transferred US$4 billion to Northern richer countries by buying US Treasury bonds, repaying external debt, capital flight and others.
"It (transfer of funds to the North) is an unacceptable situation and needed to be addressed," she said.
"Why is money from developing countries going to US and other rich economies, and when is not, it is kept as reserves in the central banks of developing countries?"
She says the policy of reserve accumulation left little for governments to spend.
"You don't need to increase reserves at the expense of the people.
Estimates by Tax Justice Network put at $11 trillion the capital flight and says if the money is taxed, it would have increased fiscal space for social expenditure.
According to an IMF study, of the Official Development Aid in Sub Saharan Africa, only 27 percent is allocated to government spending while debt reduction (37 percent) and reserve accumulation (36 percent) get the remainder of the funds.
Ortiz says there is currently every sign that the MDGs will not be achieved unless major investments in social and economic development are done.
"There is all evidence that there will not be achieved. Degree of poverty is still so large and the food crisis plus the social impacts of the financial crisis, require further efforts of both developed and developing governments to agree a global new deal," she said.
To her the MDGs are modest as they talk of halving poverty by half living the remainder still in poverty.
Since September 2000, when 147 Heads of State and Government met in New York, and agreed to end some of the global problems bedevilling members by 2015, developing countries have been struggling to lay the roadmap as they are facing one crisis after the other.
Under the MDGs the leaders agreed to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger and achieve universal primary education. The leaders also pledged to promote gender equality and empower women as well as reduce child mortality prevalent in developing countries. Improvement of maternal health; ensure environmental sustainability and development of a global partnership for development was prioritised under the MDGs. Cognisant of the devastation of HIV/ AIDS, malaria and other communicable diseases, the leaders pledged to have halved by 2015 and begun to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS as well as to have halted by 2015 and reverse the incidence of malaria and other communicable diseases.
However, countries such as Zimbabwe will struggle to meet the minimum conditions due to a host of problems, some of them man-made.
The country is hut down from international financial capital that would have bridged the budget gap.
Analysts say Zimbabwe will not meet any of the targets unless there is a paradigm shift in the way of doing things. Inflation at 231 million percent has eroded the purchasing power of the currency increasing poverty levels.
Four out of five people are out of work making Zimbabwe's situation unprecedented for a country not at war. By Ndamu Sandu In New York
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