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.