UN's Annan Urges Rich & Poor Countries to End Poverty

On 27th June 2005 UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan called on rich countries to provide the funding for poor nations, describing this era as the time when "after many years of hard work and compromise, the world is now on the threshold of a breakthrough in the pursuit of development and human dignity."

During the General Assembly High-Level Dialogue on Financing for Development held in New York yesterday, he remarked that there is a real hope as "many developing countries have succeeded in lifting millions of people out of impoverishment and despair."

Annan praised the international community for the banding together in a sustained, and unprecedented effort to solve the world's poverty.

The Assembly gathered finance ministers to discuss the stage of implementation of the Monterrey Consensus that is the international agreement adopted by world leaders in 2002.

The Monterrey meeting, brought "rich and poor countries together in partnership," said Annan since the developed nations agreed to a new bargain with the developing nations in order to meet UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The MDGs aim to halve the world's poverty, stop the spread of HIV/AIDS and provide primary education across the world's poorest nations, and all of these to be met by 2015.

"The Millennium Development Goals have become a rallying point of unparalleled scope - the globally accepted benchmarks by which our policies should be fashioned, and by which our progress should be judged," Mr. Annan said.

The Assembly is taking place just 12 days before the G8 summit in Scotland and less then 12 weeks before the 2005 World Summit of the UN, were the MDGs will be reviewed. Mr. Annan views this as challenge: "The question now is, whether we can close the deal."

Developing countries, struggling with poverty, hunger and disease mainly in Africa, are this year's main focus at the G8 summit. Aid and development programs, all dependant on funding from developed economies, are facing financial difficulties, as the budget shortfall grows.

In this context, Mr. Annan praised the decision of G8 finance ministers taken earlier this month to clear off the debt of 18 developing countries and the agreement of European Union leaders to set up a clear timetable of achieving the 0.7% target for official development assistance (ODA).

"This will offer a chance to finally overcome the resource shortfalls that have kept so many millions of people mired in squalor," he said.

Annan concluded, "Such steps make up for lost ground. They need to be accompanied by similarly dramatic action on the unfinished parts of the agenda. Rich and poor alike must do their part. Responsibility flows both ways."