CAIRO: "Egypt must redress regional disparities in the achievement of its MDG targets, said Erma Manoncore, Egypt's UN resident coordinator, during an event Thursday marking the release of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) 2007 report. Manoncore believes that despite the fact that Egypt looks to be on track to achieving its MDGs, it needs to confront the clear discrepancy between development in Lower and Upper Egypt. The eight MDGs agreed upon globally include cutting extreme poverty and aid by half and providing universal education. The event which took place at the Arab League also highlighted the commitment of Arab nations to follow up on the implementation of MDGs during the 2006 Khartoum Arab Summit, as well as a future vision to organize an Arab Summit dedicated solely to the region's socio-economic challenges. Based on data prepared by a large number of institutions within and outside the UN, the report categorizes the world into regions and then sites the achievements and pitfalls of these regions in reaching their millennium goals. "The report shows that poverty is less on a global level, but there is a greater gap between the haves and the have-nots, that is worrisome, Manoncore said. According to the MDG report, in sub-Saharan Africa, the proportion of people living in extreme poverty fell from 46.8 percent in 1990 to 41.1 percent in 2004. Poverty rates doubled in Western Asia, an area which includes war-torn Iraq and the Palestinian territories. For the North African region, which includes Egypt, the proportion of people living on an income that is less than a dollar a day went down from 2.6 percent in 1990 to 1.4 percent in 2004. The number of poor people in the developing world also went down from 1.25 billion in 1990 to 980 million in 2004. "I think it helps Egyptians understand globally where we are trying to go. It also signals the other reports that will come out, which look at development regionally and in a way that is more country specific, Manoncore said. When asked about the commitment of industrial nations in helping the developing world reach these goals, Manoncore was clearly dissatisfied. "I think they can do more, she said. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon echoed the same issue in the foreword of the report, which was released on July 2. "In particular the lack of any significant increase in official development assistance since 2004 makes it impossible even for well-governed countries, to meet the MDG's, he wrote.
