Forging regional partnership to eradicate poverty by 2015

Forging regional partnership to eradicate poverty by 2015

Ngurah Swajaya
Jakarta

Indonesian media continuously present bleak reports on
malnourishment cases and outbreak of diseases in a number of
provinces, ranging from severe malnutrition known as "busung
lapar" to avian influenza ("bird flu").

From January to April 2005 alone, malnutrition cases in
children under five-years old in Central Java amounted to almost
6,000 with 25 attributable deaths. The number dramatically
increased to almost 9,000 malnutrition cases in June 2005. Ninety
percent of these cases are closely related to the extreme poverty
of their parents.

These are examples -- as suggested by Prof. Jeffrey Sachs in
his Millennium Project Report -- of "pockets of poverty" that
exist within countries or regions despite the overall progress
achieved to reach the targets of the Millennium Development Goals
(MDGs).

In preparation for the largest gathering of world's leaders at
the United Nations in New York to review the implementation of
the Millennium Declaration next September, ministers of Asian and
Pacific countries will gather in Jakarta this week to attend a
meeting on implementing the MDGs: The Way Forward to 2015.

The meeting will provide a forum for an exchange experiences
and lessons learnt on implementing MDGs and to design common
strategies to develop partnership and cooperation. Why is the
meeting organized? The Asia-Pacific is a region that has
registered a massive and unprecedented reduction in poverty,
according to the UN Secretary-General in his recent report.

Over the past 15 years, the number of poor people in the
region has been drastically reduced. However, the number of poor
who live on under a dollar a day in this region remains the
largest compared to other regions. Two-thirds of almost one
billion poor people in the world live in Asia and the Pacific.

The region's rapid economic growth helped to achieve such
progress. Thus, the overall implementation of MDGs still reflects
a mixed picture of both significant progress and missed
opportunities. Sustained growth in China and accelerated growth
in India, the two most populous countries in the world, are the
main reasons for the decline of the number of extreme poor in the
region.

Despite the success stories and encouraging reports on the
overall progress to reduce extreme poverty in the region, a lot
more need to be done in the region in particular at national
levels. As with China, India and Indonesia, despite their
significant achievements in eradicating poverty, the fact remains
that disturbing cases of extreme poverty, malnutrition, hunger,
and lack of access to basic health services and education still
occur.

These cases happen not only in rural areas but also in big
metropolitan cities like Jakarta.

The achievement of reaching the MDGs target also varied at the
sub regional levels in Asia and the Pacific. The United Nations
reported that southern Asia is the sub-region that was left
behind in achieving MDG goals, particularly in eradicating hunger
and malnutrition. Other sub regions are doing relatively well in
most of MDGs targets.

Achieving the targets by 2015, therefore, requires extra
efforts by countries in the region. Dramatic scaling-up efforts
are critical to promote enrollment in primary education, reducing
child mortality due to malnutrition and poverty and addressing
the spread of preventable diseases. On environmental
sustainability, the region is still behind compared to other
regions.

Lack of access to water and basic sanitation and affordable
energy, deforestation, and air pollution all require serious
action by countries in the region.

On global partnership for development, the level of official
development assistance (ODA) from developed countries recovered
from its decline in the 1990s to reach a record high of US$79
billion in 2004. In addition, donors have also pledged to raise
assistance at the global level by an additional $20 billion by
2006.

Although the increase is significant, however, the amount is
still insufficient to finance the achievement of the MDGs. Even
if the commitments pledged by donors to implement ODA exceeds the
expected $100 billion by 2010, this amount still falls short in
terms of the financial resources considered necessary to achieve
MDGs.

In this context, promoting the potential of international
trade and foreign investment is critical. Implementing an open,
rule-based, predictable, non-discriminatory trading and financial
system should complement the 0.7 percent ODA target.

As emphasized by the Millennium Declaration, one of the most
important requirements for achieving the MDGs is good governance.
Combating corruption, social justice, access to information,
democratization and promotion of human rights including
responsive and accountable government are also crucial in this
regard.

The ministerial gathering organized in Jakarta this week
should be able to consolidate countries in Asia and the Pacific
to comprehensively assess where they are in terms of achieving
MDGs. The meeting is also expected to develop concrete
partnerships and cooperation to utilize the potentials of the
region.

The writer is the acting director for UN economic development
and environmental affairs at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.