Asia Pacific nations commit to action plans to end poverty

Asia Pacific nations commit to action plans to end poverty

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Delegates from 40 Asia Pacific countries pledged here on Friday
to translate their broad acceptance of the world's anti-poverty
goals into concrete national financing plans that specify how
much it will cost them to attain the targets by 2015.

"We expect to finalize combining the government's action plans
and accumulating their funding needs by April next year," UN
special ambassador on Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) for
Asia and the Pacific Erna Witoelar told The Jakarta Post.

Erna went on to add that in the next 10 years, governments
must continue to pursue pro-poor growth and development policy
and implement MDG-based action plans.

The pledge was put in the so-called "Jakarta Declaration",
which would be presented at the 60th session of the UN General
Assembly this September by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

The declaration calls for regional cooperation in the areas of
trade, investment, capacity-building, technology, infrastructure
development and information and communication technologies.

According to the declaration, donors must provide enhanced and
more predictable financing for aid, while emerging donors of the
region, such as the East Asian "tigers," should strengthen trade,
infrastructure development and investment in poor countries of
the region to fight poverty.

"We recognize the urgent need of Asia and the Pacific to
undertake collective actions, considering that ... much needs to
be done over the next ten years," Indonesian Coordinating
Minister for People's Welfare Alwi Shihab read a statement.

The declaration therefore requests the special assistance of
the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the UN
Millennium Project to support sectoral needs assessments for
national governments to achieve the MDGs.

It also reaffirms the importance of enhancing cooperation in
the region in fostering greater coherence and improved trade
among the countries to accomplish the MDGs.

"We recognize the importance of trade as an engine of growth
and development, and emphasize the need for further work in the
region to promote an open, rules-based, predictable, non-
discriminatory multilateral trading system, including through
achieving the development objective of the Doha Round," it said.

The commitment represents the culmination of a three-day
meeting in which the challenges of the region's 14 least
developed countries (LDCs) have been brought to the forefront.

The meeting also recognized the health and environmental
problems in this region, and the delegates expressed commitment
to mobilize cooperation to address them.

Warning that the development gains of many countries in the
region were now threatened by the steady rise of oil prices, the
declaration calls for enhanced development of alternative energy
sources, efficient energy use and sustainability of energy
supplies.

Given the region's particular vulnerability to natural
disasters, the countries also stressed the need for more regional
cooperation and the need to speed up establishment of early
warning systems for all natural hazards.

Also along with more technology transfer to avert the
development of pandemics such as HIV/AIDS, avian flu and other
communicable diseases.

Separately, a non-government organization coalition Global
Call to Action against Poverty (GCAP) feared that the formula of
free trade driving economic growth to implement MDG commitments
might instead make countries move away from the goals.

"Such a formula is just the same development paradigm in place
over the past 30 years that has been the root cause of the
current poverty and injustice, choking the lives and human
dignity of the world's poor, in which the majority live in the
Asia Pacific region," it said in a statement.