ASEAN states to narrow gaps among them
ASEAN states to narrow gaps among them
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The millennium goals, in a few words, are to make people a little
less miserable if not much happier, safer and healthier; and to
narrow the gap between the very rich and very poor. It's no doubt
a tough feat, even for residents in Southeast Asia alone -- some
500 million of them.
Representatives of countries in the Association of Southeast
Asian Nations (ASEAN) said on Tuesday they were committed to
improve cooperation to reduce the huge gaps among them.
After a regional workshop an advisor to the ASEAN-UNDP
Partnership Facility, Romeo A. Reyes, said that they were
proposing a working group called the "ASEAN Millennium
Development Compact". The group would draw up a detailed
framework to seek realistic targets, share experiences regarding
efforts in the region to reach the goals and facilitate the
relevant needs of national and local governments.
Among the goals are halving the proportion of people living on
less than US$1 a day between 1990 and 2015, and also halving
by 2015 "the proportion of people without sustainable access to
safe drinking water and basic sanitation".
The regional workshop identified the challenges in Southeast
Asia in reaching the goals such as the recent cases of
malnutrition in parts of Indonesia; and how to make sustainable
the efforts in curbing HIV/AIDS such as in Thailand and Cambodia.
"Trade barriers are still high," a summary of the workshop said.
The participants also identified the notable differences in
the region such as the wealthier nations of Singapore and Brunei;
the "slowly progressing" nations of Cambodia, Myanmar and Laos,
the "fast progressing" nations of Malaysia and Thailand and the
"moderately progressing" countries of the Philippines, Vietnam
and Indonesia.
Also highlighted as a priority need was mutual support to
strengthen capacity in poverty mapping and targeting, monitoring
and evaluation of MDGs, and in improving the effectiveness of
Official Development Assistance.