Susilo urges region to fight poverty
Zakki P. Hakim, The Jakarta Post/Jakarta
Asia-Pacific nations, from Japan to Afghanistan and Samoa, should work closely together to reach shared goals such as halving the number of poor people, thus making the region more stable, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said on Wednesday.
He was addressing delegates, including ministers from the region's 40 countries at the three-day Asia-Pacific Regional Meeting on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
"We may find it ironic that while our region is gaining a reputation for economic dynamism; at the same time it is still home to the majority of the world's poor," he said in his opening speech.
"Our success or failure in alleviating poverty will determine whether our global home will be stable or unstable. After all, poverty and security are interlinked in many ways," he said.
Indonesia is among 189 countries whose leaders in 2000 adopted the UN Millennium Declaration setting out eight goals. The first is the halving by 2015 of the proportion of people suffering from hunger and those living on less than US$1 a day.
Asia-Pacific nations, Susilo said, should also take the lead in addressing issues such as debt relief and making trade work for development.
The meeting is expected to provide input for the plenary meeting of the UN General Assembly in New York from Sept. 14 to Sept. 16, which will review the progress toward reaching the goals made over the past five years.
Other regions have already organized themselves into partnerships with the industrialized countries to help them meet all the targets.
Assistant UN secretary-general for economic development Jomo Kwame Sundaram cited various encouraging developments, including commitments by members of the European Union to achieve the target of donating 0.7 percent of GDP in aid, and debt relief by the world's industrialized countries grouped in the G-8.
However, "While 18 highly indebted poor countries (in Africa) have had their debt reduced (by the G-8), the poorest nations in Asia continue to be bypassed when it comes to debt relief," he said.
State Minister for National Development Planning Sri Mulyani Indrawati also said that although the most severe cases were in Africa, the largest number of poor people was in Asia-Pacific.
"We sympathize with Africa ... But the G-8's commitment is very minimal ... it will not solve poverty in Africa," she said.
For countries to escape the debt trap, Mulyani added, they needed additional aid or grants to compliment debt relief, with flexible conditions allowing them to allocate the funds according to their own national development priorities.
Wednesday also witnessed the launching of the Asia Pacific Least Developed Countries Report on MDGs titled: Voices of the LDCs of Asia and the Pacific.
The report recommended that LDCs receive debt relief, tripled aid, trade facilitation and wider market access.