International cooperation at a crossroads

(Excerpts from the 388-page Human Development Report 2005.)

Published on page A12 of the September 25, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

FIFTEEN YEARS AGO THE first Human Development Report looked forward to a decade of rapid progress. “The 1990s,” it predicted optimistically, “are shaping up as the decade for human development, for rarely has there been such a consensus on the real objectives of development strategies.”

Today, as in 1990, there is also a consensus on development. That consensus has been powerfully expressed in the reports of the UN Millennium Project and the UK-sponsored Commission for Africa. Unfortunately, the consensus has yet to give rise to practical actions—and there are ominous signs for the decade ahead. There is a real danger that the next 10 years, like the past 15 years, will deliver far less for human development that the new consensus promises.

Much has been achieved since the first Human Development Report. On average, people in developing countries are healthier, better educated and less impoverished—and they are more likely to live in a multiparty democracy. Since 1990 life
expectancy in developing countries has increased by two years. There are three million fewer child deaths annually and 30 million fewer children out of school. More than 130 million people have escaped extreme poverty. These human development gains should not be underestimated.

Divided Wordl - Child Mortality - Richest 500 - Gaps

Reversal
Not should they be exaggerated. In 2003, 18 countries with a combined population of 460 million people registered lower scores on the human development index (HDI) than in 1990—an unprecedented reversal. In the midst of an increasingly prosperous global economy, 10.7 million children every year do not live to see their fifth birthday, and more than 1 billion people survive in abject poverty on less than $1 a day. The HIV/AIDS pandemic has inflicted the single greatest reversal in human development. In 2003 the pandemic claimed three million lives and left another five million people infected. Millions of children have been orphaned.
Global integration is forging deeper interconnections between countries. In economic terms the space between people and countries is shrinking rapidly, as trade, technology and investment link all countries in a web of interdependence. In human development terms the space between countries is marked by deep and, in some cases, widening inequalities in income and life chances. One-fifth of humanity live in countries where many people think nothing of spending $2 a day on a cappuccino. Another fifth of humanity survive on less than $1 a day and live in countries where children die for want of a simple anti-mosquito bednet.

Action now
As the UN Secretary-General has put it: “The MDGs can be met by 2015—but only if all involved break with business as usual and dramatically accelerate and scale up action now.” Some of the world’s poorest countries—including Bangladesh, Uganda and Vietnam—have shown that rapid progress is possible. But rich countries need to help meet the startup costs of a global human development take off.
The 2015 projection offers a clear warning. To put it bluntly, the world is heading for a heavily sign-posted human development disaster, the cost of which will be counted in avoidable deaths, children out of school and lost opportunities for poverty reduction. That disaster is as avoidable as it is predictable. If governments are serious about their commitment to the MDGs, business as usual is not an option.

Otros Temas:

Solidarity and Promotion