Egypt, France airdrop aid to Gaza amid growing humanitarian crisis, global criticism of Israel    Supply minister discusses strengthening cooperation with ITFC    Egypt launches initiative with traders, manufacturers to reduce prices of essential goods    SCZONE chief discusses strengthening maritime, logistics cooperation with Panama    Egypt strengthens healthcare partnerships to enhance maternity, multiple sclerosis, and stroke care    Egypt keeps Gaza aid flowing, total tops 533,000 tons: minister    Egypt reviews health insurance funding mechanism to ensure long-term sustainability    Gaza on verge of famine as war escalates, ceasefire talks stall    Gaza crisis, trade on agenda as Trump hosts Starmer in Scotland    Egyptian president follows up on initiatives to counter extremist thought    Indian Embassy to launch cultural festival in Assiut, film fest in Cairo    Egyptian aid convoy heads toward Gaza as humanitarian crisis deepens    Culture minister launches national plan to revive film industry, modernise cinematic assets    Sudan's ambassador to Egypt holds reconstruction talks on with Arab League    I won't trade my identity to please market: Douzi    Sisi calls for boosting oil & gas investment to ease import burden    EGX to close Thursday for July 23 Revolution holiday    Egypt welcomes 25-nation statement urging end to Gaza war    Sisi sends letter to Nigerian president affirming strategic ties    Egypt, Senegal sign pharma MoU to unify regulatory standards    Two militants killed in foiled plot to revive 'Hasm' operations: Interior ministry    Egypt, Somalia discuss closer environmental cooperation    58 days that exposed IMF's contradictions on Egypt    Egypt's EHA, Huawei discuss enhanced digital health    Foreign, housing ministers discuss Egypt's role in African development push    Egypt reveals heritage e-training portal    Three ancient rock-cut tombs discovered in Aswan    Sisi launches new support initiative for families of war, terrorism victims    Egypt expands e-ticketing to 110 heritage sites, adds self-service kiosks at Saqqara    Egypt's Irrigation Minister urges scientific cooperation to tackle water scarcity    Palm Hills Squash Open debuts with 48 international stars, $250,000 prize pool    On Sport to broadcast Pan Arab Golf Championship for Juniors and Ladies in Egypt    Golf Festival in Cairo to mark Arab Golf Federation's 50th anniversary    Germany among EU's priciest labour markets – official data    Paris Olympic gold '24 medals hit record value    A minute of silence for Egyptian sports    Russia says it's in sync with US, China, Pakistan on Taliban    It's a bit frustrating to draw at home: Real Madrid keeper after Villarreal game    Shoukry reviews with Guterres Egypt's efforts to achieve SDGs, promote human rights    Sudan says countries must cooperate on vaccines    Johnson & Johnson: Second shot boosts antibodies and protection against COVID-19    Egypt to tax bloggers, YouTubers    Egypt's FM asserts importance of stability in Libya, holding elections as scheduled    We mustn't lose touch: Muller after Bayern win in Bundesliga    Egypt records 36 new deaths from Covid-19, highest since mid June    Egypt sells $3 bln US-dollar dominated eurobonds    Gamal Hanafy's ceramic exhibition at Gezira Arts Centre is a must go    Italian Institute Director Davide Scalmani presents activities of the Cairo Institute for ITALIANA.IT platform    







Thank you for reporting!
This image will be automatically disabled when it gets reported by several people.



Broken promises
Published in Daily News Egypt on 13 - 10 - 2010

PRINCETON: In 2000, the world's leaders met in New York and issued a ringing Millennium Declaration, promising to halve the proportion of people suffering from extreme poverty and hunger by 2015. They also pledged to halve the proportion of people without safe drinking water and sanitation; move toward universal and full primary schooling for children everywhere — girls as well as boys; reduce child mortality by two-thirds and maternal mortality by three-quarters; and combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other major diseases. These pledges, reformulated as specific, measurable targets, became the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
Last month, 10 years on from that meeting, world leaders returned to New York for a United Nations summit that adopted a document called Keeping the Promise, which reaffirmed the commitment to meeting the goals by 2015. The UN press release called the document a “global action plan” to achieve the MDGs, but it is more an expression of aspirations than a plan. What chance do we really have of keeping the promises made in 2000?
As the Yale philosopher Thomas Pogge has pointed out, the task has been made easier by moving the goal posts. Even before 2000, the World Food Summit, held in Rome in 1996, pledged to halve the number of undernourished people by 2015. By contrast, the corresponding MDG was to halve the proportion of the world's people who are suffering from hunger (as well as of those living in extreme poverty). Because the world's population is rising, halving the proportion of people suffering from hunger (and extreme poverty) means that the number will not be halved.
But worse was to come. When the Millennium Declaration was rewritten as a set of specific goals, the baseline for calculating the proportion to be halved was set not at 2000, but at 1990. That meant that progress already made could contribute to the achievement of the goal. And the goal became halving “the proportion of people in the developing world,” which makes a big difference, because the developing world's population is growing faster than the population of the world as a whole.
The net effect of all these changes, Pogge calculates, is that, whereas world leaders pledged in 1996 that by 2015 they would reduce the number of undernourished people to no more than 828 million, now they are pledging only to reduce the number in extreme poverty to 1.324 billion. Since extreme poverty is responsible for about one-third of all human deaths, this difference effectively means that — if the final promise is actually honored — each year about six million more people will die from poverty-related causes than would have died had the original promise made in Rome been kept.
In any case, according to a recent World Bank/International Monetary Fund report, we are not on track to meet even the scaled-back global target of halving the proportion of hungry people in developing countries. Rising food prices — possibly related to climate change — have reversed past progress and last year briefly pushed the number suffering from hunger above the one-billion mark. That this should happen while developed nations waste hundreds of millions of tons of grain and soybeans by feeding them to animals, and obesity reaches epidemic proportions, undermines our claims to believe in the equal value of all human life.
The target of halving the proportion of people in extreme poverty is within reach, but mainly because of economic progress in China and India. In Africa, after economic stagnation in the 1990s, a decade of encouraging economic growth is reducing the proportion of the population living in extreme poverty, but not quickly enough to halve it by 2015.
There is better news on achieving gender parity in education, a key to reaching other goals, including lower infant mortality, which often comes about because educated women have fewer children. We also have a good chance of meeting the target of reducing by half the proportion of people in developing countries without safe drinking water — but to achieve the same with sanitation is proving more difficult.
On health goals, however, we are not even close. Maternal mortality is falling, but not fast enough. More people with HIV/AIDS are getting inexpensive anti-retroviral drugs and their life-expectancy has increased, but universal access is still far off, and the disease is still spreading, if more slowly than before. Progress has been made in reducing malaria and measles, and the rate of child mortality has fallen partly as a result, but the goal of a two-thirds reduction will not be met.
For a long time, rich countries have promised to reduce poverty, but have failed to match their words with adequate action. Of course, some important progress has been made. Millions of lives have been saved, but millions more could be saved.
To make sustainable progress in reducing extreme poverty will require improvements in both the quantity and quality of aid. Just a handful of countries — Denmark, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden — have met or exceeded the UN's modest target of 0.7 percent of GDP for foreign development assistance. But, without trade reform and action on climate change, more and better aid will not suffice.
For now, it looks very much as if, come 2015, the world's leaders will have failed to keep their (watered-down) promises. That means that they will be responsible for permitting the needless deaths, every year, of millions of people.
Peter Singer is Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University. His most recent book, The Life You Can Save, addresses the obligations of the rich to the poor (www.thelifeyoucansave.com). This commentary is published by Daily News Egypt in collaboration with Project Syndicate, www.project-syndicate.org.


Clic here to read the story from its source.