towards 2015 - nsi-ins.ca · cdr 2005 by roy culpeper, president development cooperation is a...

Meeting our

Millennium Commitments

Towards 2015:

2 0 0 5

The North-South Institute

C A N A D I A N D E V E L O P M E N T R E P O R T 2 0 0 5

Meeting our

Millennium Commitments

Towards 2015:


C A N A D I A N D E V E L O P M E N T R E P O R T 2 0 0 5


gratefully acknowledges

the generous financial support

of the following donors in

the publication of the

Canadian Development Report 2005.

Benefactor(Donations of more than $20,000)

Agence canadienne dedéveloppement international

Canadian InternationalDevelopment Agency

Supporters(Donations between $4,000 and $9,999)

Aga Khan Foundation CanadaFondation Aga Khan Canada

R. HOWARD WEBSTER FOUNDATION

LA FONDATION R. HOWARD WEBSTER

Contributors(Donations between $1,000 and $3,999)

DonorsWe would also like to thank Results-Résultats Canada, Coro Strandberg, Blaise Salmon and Peter Podvinikoff for their donations.

Table of Contents

Foreword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . iRoy Culpeper, President, The North-South Institute

About the 2005 Canadian Development Report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3John W. Foster

The Millennium Declaration and the Millennium Development Goals . . . . . . . . . . . 9John W. Foster

Assessing Canada’s contribution: A preliminary review

Canada: The Challenge of Doing Better . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23John W. Foster

The Millennium Development Goals and Poverty Reduction Strategy . . . . . . . . . . . 33Rodney Schmidt

Aid Flows, the MDGs and Poverty Eradication: More and Better Canadian Aid . . . . 43 Brian Tomlinson

Canada and MDG Goal 8: Focus on Trade . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57Ann Weston and Bill Morton

MDG 8 and Canada’s Debt Relief Efforts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71Bill Morton and Roy Culpeper

From Platform to Declaration: Beijing and the MDGs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79Heather Gibb

The MDGs and Infectious Diseases: Focus on HIV/AIDS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89John W. Foster

Canada and the Peace and Security Pillar of the Millennium Declaration . . . . . . . . 105Stephen Baranyi

Canadian Development Report 2005

Towards 2015: Meeting our Millennium Commitments

Perspectives from the South

Bangladesh Case Study: Progress of MDG Implementation and the Canadian Contribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119Rashed Al Mahmud Titumir and Jakir Hossain

Canadian Aid to Bolivia and the MDGs: Actions and Perspectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145Gonzalo Chávez A., Beatriz Muriel H.

Implementation of the MDGs in Mali: Canada’s Contribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165Boukary Barry

Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193John W. Foster

Appendix 1: The Millennium Declaration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201

Appendix 2: The Millennium Development Goals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213

Statistical Annex . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217Luigi Scarpa de Masellis

Foreword to CDR 2005By Roy Culpeper, President

Development cooperation is a relativelynew phenomenon in international rela-tions, having emerged only since the endof World War II. In an era that pays scantattention to history, it is easy to lose sightof this simple fact, particularly since mostof the world’s population has been bornafter that war. But it is a fact that untilthe 1940s the world had never seriouslyconsidered the transfer of resources fromwealthier countries, along with a moreequitable international economic order,in order to facilitate the economic andsocial development of poorer countries.

Cynics might say that developmentcooperation is simply old wine in newbottles—an inventive form of neo-colonialism. Certainly there is muchevidence from the Cold War era, andeven more recently, to support that view.Nonetheless it would be excessive todismiss the entire project as simply amanifestation of the struggle forgeopolitical hegemony. Even if suchmotivations remain fundamental, it isquite plausible to argue that, despitesome serious setbacks, internationalcooperation for development hassignificantly improved the social andeconomic circumstances of the pooresthalf of humankind.

Given the relative newness of theenterprise, it should not be surprisingthat it has taken several decades ofresearch, debate, and trial and errorto clarify fundamental issues: whatare the key objectives of development

cooperation? And how are they tobe achieved?

As to the first of these issues, the “what”of development cooperation, the WorldBank initiated a “focus on poverty” in the1970s only to see it yield to the debtcrisis and structural adjustment in the1980s. However, in the 1990s a series ofinternational conferences convened bythe UN generated an in-depth policyagenda ranging from environmentalsustainability, to gender equality, tosocial development and human rights.The UN’s Millennium Summit inSeptember 2000 codified these objec-tives in a Declaration which contained,among other things, the MillenniumDevelopment Goals (MDGs).

This edition of the Canadian DevelopmentReport undertakes a dispassionate analy-sis of the Millennium Declaration and itsDevelopment Goals. In many respects, asthis report points out, the Declarationand the MDGs represent a retreat fromthe much more ambitious policy agendathat had emerged in the 1990s.Furthermore, there is a basic question asto whether the MDGs constitute the“right” objectives. At the same time, theMDGs and the Declaration provide acritical platform on which to build futuredevelopment cooperation efforts, andperhaps even more important, tomonitor and evaluate the efforts ofgovernments and international agenciesaround the world.

As to the issue of “how” developmentobjectives are to be achieved, there isconsiderably less agreement. First andforemost, it is clear that foreign aid is notthe only policy instrument for develop-ment cooperation, nor is it even themost important one. Economic andsocial development can also be enhanced

Towards 2015: Meeting our Millennium Commitments

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through international trade and foreigndirect investment. It is also clear thatpeace, security and the maintenance ofbasic human rights are preconditionsfor development. But in each case thereare questions as to impact. Is foreignaid effective? How do foreign tradeand investment actually contribute tohuman development? How can peacebe sustained and fresh conflictprevented, through economic andsocial development?

Considerable debate surrounds these“how” questions and is likely to do so forsome time. Many policies, for exampleeconomic liberalization, advocated overthe past two decades by OECD countriesand the International FinancialInstitutions, are ostensibly aimed atincreasing economic growth. Yet therelationship between growth on the

one hand, and on the other povertyreduction, gender equality, socialdevelopment, peace and security, andenvironmental sustainability, remainsunclear and hotly contested.

This edition of the Institute’s CanadianDevelopment Report aims to shed somelight on these debates and, in so doing ,help to inform policy-makers and allthose who are committed to genuinehuman security, sustainable andequitable development.

Roy Culpeper, PhDPresident and CEOThe North-South Institute


ii

About the

2005 Canadian

Development

Report

John W. Foster

About the 2005 Canadian Development Report

3

The North-South Institute’s (NSI)flagship annual publication, theCanadian Development Report

(CDR) for 2005 offers a review ofCanada’s response to the MillenniumDevelopment Goals (MDGs) inthe context of the MillenniumDeclaration.

Governments, including Canada’s,are submitting official reports inpreparation for the MillenniumReview Summit in September2005. A number of researchinstitutes and civil societyorganizations (CSOs) arepreparing evaluations andshadow reports. The UnitedNations-initiated MillenniumProject has published a majorreport on current progress andthe way forward, supported by10 thematic studies. The UNSecretary-General, Kofi Annan,has released his own report, Inlarger freedom: towards develop-ment, security and human rightsfor all, which will form the keybackground document for theSummit’s agenda, and the UNDevelopment Programme (UNDP)is compiling national progressreports from around the globe.

The Institute’s CDR is a stock-taking, providing preliminaryand independent assessmentsof Canada’s contribution to theimplementation of the MDGs. Wealso examine one key dimensionof the Millennium Declarationwhich could be decisive inwhether or not the goals arereached and the vision of theDeclaration is accomplished.

The Institute has been engagedwith the Declaration and thegoals since the period of theirformation:

• We have published, jointly withthe World Federation of UnitedNations Associations (WFUNA),four annual reviews of civilsociety engagement with thegoals: We the peoples…2002,2003, 2004, 2005.1 The 2005review—Mobilizing for change:Messages from Civil Society—isan expanded examinationof civil society concernsand proposals.

• Our recently released paper onthe International PolicyReview—Human Security,Sustainable and Equitable

About the 2005 Canadian

Development ReportJohn W. Foster

Development: Foundations for Canada’sInternational Policy—proposes theadoption of the Declaration and thegoals as a policy framework to beadopted by the Prime Minister andoperationalized in the strategicpriorities and plans of all departmentsand agencies.

• A Benchmark for the 5-year Review ofthe Millennium Summit was recentlyreleased by the Social Watch, an inter-national civil society network withmore than 50 national components,monitoring Copenhagen and Beijingimplementation, in which the Instituteis one of two Canadian partners.

• Institute researchers have contributedto three of the regional preparatoryprocesses for the 2005 globalconference on civil society and theprevention of armed conflict.

• NSI is also completing a brief compar-ative review of the responses of thefour Commonwealth donor govern-ments to the MDGs.

Several specialized studies from theInstitute on trade, HIV/AIDS, inequality,debt, gender equality, and the relation-ship of macroeconomic policy andpoverty provide useful background on anumber of dimensions of the MDGs.

The Canadian Development Report 2005seeks the following:

• To encourage the Canadian govern-ment to actively support the imple-mentation of the MDGs andMillennium Declaration agenda in acoherent fashion.

• To provide Canadian civil societyorganizations with data and analysisfor use in advancing this agenda.

• To contribute to broader debatesabout assessment methodologies,implementation priorities and thelimits of the enterprise

• To provide a platform for policy dia-logue and collaboration between theInstitute and the broader developmentcommunity.

• To lay the foundations for an ongoingassessment of Canada’s performance,with a view to producing a morecomplete and robust evaluation incoming years.

This Report brings together a series ofessays by Canadian researchers, threecountry case studies, and our annualstatistical reference compendium.

This edition provides a brief context inwhich the assessment of progress anddebate of future initiatives occurs in2005, as well as an overview of theapproach of the Canadian government.

Rodney Schmidt outlines some of the keyoverall policy choices which shouldinform not only Canada’s bilateral rolebut also the positions Canada advocatesin major multilateral organizations whichincreasingly define the direction of assis-tance and policy advice to developingnations. Do Canadian policies target theinequality gaps which characterize somany societies, or simply push a growthmodel which may make them worse?

Brian Tomlinson provides an overview ofCanada’s official development assistance(ODA) from the viewpoint of the MDGs,


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with a focus on poverty, providing acritical assessment of the expendituresCanada has been and will be making.

Ann Weston and Bill Morton examineCanada’s performance on the trade anddebt dimensions of the ”developmentpartnership” envisioned in Goal 8.

Given the centrality of the impact ofpoverty on women and the contributionof women to its eradication, HeatherGibb examines the importance of inte-grating the comprehensive framework forgender equality developed at the BeijingWomen’s Conference and redefining theMDGs in that light.

As the development impact and massivehuman cost of HIV/AIDS is moreadequately understood, the measure ofthe response required is much morechallenging than originally imaginedwhen the goals were first defined. JohnFoster outlines elements of Canada’sresponse to Goal 6.

Stephen Baranyi focuses on thecontribution Canada is making inpeace and security, within andbeyond the UN system, noting keydevelopmental and geopolitical dimen-sions and policy questions.

Our intention is to provoke continuedSouth-North collaboration in the evalua-tion and reorientation of policy. In thisyear’s Report, we present country studieson three priority Canadian partnercountries. Each essay examines Canada’scontribution to MDG achievement in thecontext of the overall approach to thegoals experienced in that country.

• Jakir Hosain and Rashed Al MahmudTitimur provide details onBangladesh’s MDG and povertyreduction strategy papers (PRSP)engagements, specific areas of MDGimplementation, and Canada’s supportin the areas of education, agriculture,gender equality, health andgovernance.

• Beatriz Muriel H. and Gonzalo ChávezA. examine Bolivia’s difficult course,and Canada’s contributions in health,water and sanitation, and governmentreform.

• Boukary Barry outlines the govern-ment’s poverty relief approach in Mali,and Canadian contributions to youtheducation, strengthening the judiciary,and internal resource mobilizationagainst a backdrop of 30 years ofcooperation.

The annual compendium of relevantstatistics and tables, organized by NSIresearcher Luigi Scarpa de Masellisrounds out the volume and providesessential reference material forresearchers, officials and activists.

JOHN W. FOSTER is a Principal Researcher(Civil Society) with The North-SouthInstitute. He joined the Institute in 2000. Hisearlier career included 17 years as a socialjustice policy officer with the United Churchof Canada and more than seven years asCEO of Oxfam-Canada. He served as anNGO representative on the Canadian dele-gation to the Copenhagen Summit on Social

About the 2005 Canadian Development Report

5

Development in 1995 and the GeneralAssembly Review of that Summit in 2000.He holds a PhD in History from theUniversity of Toronto and has done post-graduate work as a visiting scholar at theCenter for US-Mexican Studies at theUniversity of California, San Diego.

Endnote1 These and other reports from the Institute

are available at www.nsi-ins.ca.


6

The Millennium

Declaration and

the Millennium

Development Goals

John W. Foster

The Millennium Declaration and the Millennium Development Goals

9

“Four years ago, world leaders didsomething they had never donebefore. They agreed on a set ofgoals to improve living conditionsfor the world’s poorest. Theymade a road map for fightingpoverty, and they made acommitment to clear deadlinesand measurable results.”

Norwegian Ministry of ForeignAffairs, Global Partnerships forDevelopment. Progress Report byNorway 2004.1

The Millennium Declarationof September 2000, nowadopted by 191 nations, pro-

vides a welcome vision and ambi-tious agenda for the 21st century.With a foundation in values includ-ing freedom, equality, solidarity,tolerance, respect for nature, andshared responsibility, it raisedhopes as bright as the fireworksaccompanying the New Year andnew Millennium celebrations.

The Declaration highlights sevenareas for action, including peace,security and disarmament, devel-opment and poverty eradication,and strengthening the United

Nations, among others. Withinthe agenda for action, a list ofeight goals for developmentwere established, including theso-called “partnership” goal,outlining areas of commitmenton the part of wealthy andpowerful nations to globalobjectives.

More specific targets were established by the UnitedNations for the seven goalswhich pertain principally todeveloping countries.

The Declaration’s hopes for peaceand security were the first to bedeeply challenged by events andby the actions of major MemberStates. While the Declaration hasbeen taken as a launching pad forinvestigations and proposalswhich could strengthen the UN,enhance its relations with civilsociety and other partner sectors,inform development strategiesand re-establish the UN at thecentre of action for collectivesecurity, the commitment ofMember States to implement thepromises of the Declaration andthe accompanying MDGs remainsto be proven.

The Millennium Declaration and the

Millennium Development GoalsJohn W. Foster

“The reforms we propose will not by them-selves make the United Nations moreeffective. In the absence of Member Statesreaching agreement on the security consen-sus contained in the present report, theUnited Nations will underachieve. Its insti-tutions will still only be as strong as theenergy, resources and attention devoted tothem by Member States and their leaders.”

A more secure world: Our shared responsi-bility. Report of the Secretary-General’sHigh-Level Panel on Threats, Challengesand Change.2

Goals in debate“The Millennium Development Goals(MDGs) are the world’s time-bound andquantified targets for addressing extremepoverty in its many dimensions—incomepoverty, hunger, disease, lack of adequateshelter, and exclusion—while promotinggender equality, education, and environ-mental sustainability. They are also basichuman rights—the rights of each personon the planet to health, education, shelter,and security as pledged in the UniversalDeclaration of Human Rights and the UNMillennium Declaration.”

UN Millennium Project, Investing inDevelopment.3

The Millennium Development Goals, assuch emerged from the MillenniumDeclaration of 2000, and came to beendorsed in the succeeding Monterrey(Financing for Development) andJohannesburg (Sustainable Development)world conferences. The first seven goals

deal with aspects of development, theeighth deals with the roles and responsi-bilities of Northern countries and is lessspecific in terms of targets and datesthan the others. The parentage of thegoals, however, precedes the newmillennium, and has affected the way inwhich they have been regarded.

While representatives of governments,South and North, and tens of thousandsof civil society representatives debatedand decided programs of action ongender, social development (includingpoverty), human rights, the environ-ment, habitat, and other key mattersin the World Conferences of the 1990s,the rich countries of the Organisationfor Economic Co-operation andDevelopment (OECD) unilaterally definedtheir objectives for development in the1996 report, Shaping the 21st Century:The Contribution of Development Co-operation. By doing so, they broke thecompact of North-South negotiationembodied in the conferences. This breakwas dramatically demonstrated when,early in the 2000 Geneva Special Sessionon Social Development, the OECD,together with the UN and the BrettonWoods Institutions, issued a furtherreport, A Better World for All, encapsu-lating a number of the goals whichbecame part of the MDGs, and elicitingoutrage from many civil societyspokespersons. Nevertheless, and despitean ambitious NGO Millennium Forum atthe UN in 2000, the input of civil societywas not integrated, and the broader,more far-reaching objectives of theprograms of action of the conferencesof the 1990s, in such areas as gender,remained on a separate track, onlypartially touched by the morelimited MDGs.4


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The reservations of a number of civilsociety organizations (CSOs) were onlyone of the limitations on the response toand implementation of the Declarationand the goals. The United States refersto “agreed development goals” ratherthan recognizing the MDG formulationas such. While some governments,principally the Scandinavians, the Dutch,and the United Kingdom, have beenrelatively quick off the mark in relatingtheir policies and priorities to the goals;others, five years after the Declaration,are still catching up.

Geopolitical factors, principally the 9/11attacks on the US, the war in Afghanistanand what has become known as the“war on terror” shifted attention andresources to matters of hard security. The“coalition of the willing” which initiatedwar on Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, under-mined the authority of the SecurityCouncil. Political attacks on the UnitedNations together with apparent weak-nesses in the administration and effec-tiveness of the organization and contin-ued financial limitations restricted theleadership that the organization couldtake. The United Nations enters thereview year of 2005 in what many term asituation of crisis, and at a minimumwhat could be a decisive turning pointfor the institution.

The goals and the way forwardWhile recognizing the scope of theMillennium Declaration as the foundationfor a comprehensive foreign policyorientation, the debate over the MDGsin particular raises a series of importantissues for consideration as plans forthe next five to 10 years of implementa-tion emerge.

The goals do not represent a full devel-opment agenda. They have been criti-cized as inadequate in two general ways:they address symptoms and effects to amuch greater extent than causes andstructural roots of poverty and environ-mental ruin; but they fail to fully inte-grate and prioritize gender equality,especially relevant to the eradicationof poverty.

More particularly, the following areas fordeeper and more radical examinationemerge:

• The poverty goal (Goal 1) in focusingon “absolute” poverty and the US$1 aday rule of thumb is a retreat from thegoals set by the 1995 CopenhagenWorld Summit, not only by reducingthe scope of poverty addressed but infocusing only on developing countriesrather than on the responsibility of allcountries to their poor. Further, thegoal does not address issues ofinequality and growing gaps whichrelatively impoverish many.

• The environmental goal (Goal 7),ignores climate change, perhaps themost serious and universal environ-mental threat, and ignores the poten-tial conflict between the growth modelassumptions that underlie the MDGsand the limits to growth necessary tohuman survival and environmentalsustainability.

• The attention to aid, trade, and debt(Goal 8), while clearly welcome, fails inaddressing structural causes of povertyand the extent to which the macro-economic guidelines of the past twodecades have failed to address them.

• The goal dealing with HIV/AIDS(Goal 6) is scandalously modest, basedon an inadequate analysis of the


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developmental and human impact ofthe disease and was developed beforeaccess to treatment became a realpossibility for millions, frustrated bylack of resources and dominant intel-lectual property protections.

While the first seven goals are accompa-nied by fairly specific targets and datesfor achievement, Goal 8, which describesthe responsibility of the rich, lacks thisprecision. The rich seem to avoid theaccountability required of the poor.

A further and widespread concern is that at ground level the goals and theprimary framework for multilateral assis-tance, the Poverty Reduction StrategyPapers (PRSPs) may lack coherence. Therecent report of the Millennium Projectrecommends that the PRSPs be redevel-oped in terms necessary to achieve theMDGs. Rodney Schmidt and BrianTomlinson question the fundamentalassumptions of the PRSP exercise later inthis volume.5

Some governments appear to recognizethat something more than the goals asexpressed in 2000 and 2002 is required.As the Norwegian Foreign Ministrydeclares: “however, establishing a morejust and equal relationship betweendeveloped and developing countries on aglobal basis required developed countriesto adopt a broader agenda.”6

The promises of peace and security inthe Millennium Declaration wereinterrupted by two wars, the eruption ofterrorism, and the “war” responding tothat eruption. The overall distortion ofinvestment of available resources inmilitary and armament expenditures(almost US$ 1 trillion per year, almostone-half of which is expended by onecountry, the US) continues to dwarf

annual development assistance(approximately US$78 billion)7 anddebt relief.

Commitments in questionSome five years after the MillenniumSummit, the follow-through on commit-ments made on that occasion, and laterin Monterrey and Johannesburg, remainsseriously lacking, the potential for cyni-cism and doubt stronger than ever.

As UN Secretary-General Kofi Annanpointed out in March, “Sub-SaharanAfrica is at the epicentre of the crisis,falling seriously short on most Goals,with continuing food insecurity,disturbingly high child and maternalmortality, growing numbers of peopleliving in slums and an overall rise ofextreme poverty despite some importantprogress in individual countries.” In Asia,nearly 700 million people, he points out,still live on less than US$1 a day, and inregions like Latin America, the transitioneconomies, and the Middle East andNorth Africa, records are mixed, oftenhampered by growing inequality.HIV/AIDS, gender inequality, andenvironmental degradation continueas blatant challenges.8

The Millennium Review Summit When the General Assembly convenes itshigh-level session September 14, it willhave before it the comprehensive reportby Secretary-General Annan reviewingprogress in implementing the vision ofthe Millennium Declaration, In largerfreedom: towards development, securityand human rights for all. Importantcontributions to that report include theextensive studies prepared by the


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Millennium Project, Investing inDevelopment: A Practical Plan to Achievethe Millennium Development Goals, andthe Report of the High-level Panel onThreats, Challenges and Change, A moresecure world: Our shared responsibility.9

The report of the High-level Panel seeksto meet the challenges to the globalsystem for preventing conflict andassuring security, particularly those thathave emerged in the early years of thenew century. The Panel takes a broadview of security, including manyelements of the “human security”agenda, which brings its report closeto a number of themes pioneered orsupported by Canada in the late 1990sand more recently. It recognizes ascentral threats to security a number ofelements addressed, as well, by thedevelopment agenda and the MDGs:poverty, HIV/AIDS and environmentaldegradation. In this context, the paneladdresses conflict prevention, weaponsproliferation, terrorism, collectivesecurity, the use of force and the reformand strengthening of the United Nations.“In describing how to meet thechallenge of prevention, we beginwith development because it is theindispensable foundation for a collectivesecurity system that takes preventionseriously. It serves multiple functions.It helps to combat the poverty,infectious disease and environmentaldegradation that kill millions andthreaten human security.”10

The report of the Millennium Projectcomprises one of the most ambitious anddetailed studies ever of the status ofdevelopment, assessments at the countrylevel, and projections and recommenda-tions of international, country, andsector-specific actions to be undertakenand resourced. The report and its related

sectoral studies may be criticized for arather economistic approach; however,it provides detailed resources for thoseadvocating the urgency of significantincreased assistance and has a welcomeemphasis on the importance of humancapacity-building. “We have the opportu-nity in the coming decade to cut worldpoverty by half. Billions more peoplecould enjoy the fruits of the globaleconomy. Tens of millions of lives can besaved. The practical solutions exist. Thepolitical framework is established. Andfor the first time, the cost is utterlyaffordable. Whatever one’s motivationfor attacking the crisis of extremepoverty—human rights, religious values,security, fiscal prudence, ideology—thesolutions are the same. All that is neededis action.”11

Presidents, prime ministers and otherhigh-level participants will be asked toevaluate progress in the major areas ofthe Millennium Declaration’s commit-ments, including the development goals.Dozens of Southern governments havesubmitted annual reports of their imple-mentation of the goals, which have beencompiled by the UN DevelopmentProgramme (UNDP), and contributed tothe annual reviews of progress made bythe Secretary-General. Some Northerngovernments have already submittedreports dealing with their contribution tothe achievement of the MDGs. WhileCanada has a report in preparation,Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, theNetherlands, Norway, Sweden and theUnited Kingdom have already circulatedmajor reviews.

Other governments have initiatedfocused public investigations in attemptsto enrich the policy discussions in 2005and mobilize political support for action.The UK government has sponsored an


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expert UK Commission for Africa, withthe Canadian Minister of Finance as oneof its members. The Finnish andTanzanian foreign ministries initiated theHelsinki Process on Globalization andDemocracy, which included a track panelon the “Global Economic Agenda,”producing a report early in 2005,Mobilizing Resources for The MillenniumDevelopment Goals.12

While observers have predicted that2005 will exceed expectations in thenumber and volume of studies andreports produced, a prediction whichappears vindicated, the more importantissue is whether the richness of informa-tion, proposals and rhetoric will boildown into unprecedented steps forward.

Responsibility of the rich“The pressure on the G-7, magnificentlyapplied by the Jubilee Coalition and its alliesin the NGO community, has forced thefinancial aristocrats of the donor world tomake promise after promise about dealingwith African debt. In fact, the parade ofpromises is unrelenting. Virtually every gath-ering of G-7 leaders or Finance Ministerssince the turn of the century has held theprospect of change. On every occasionwe get a twitch in the right direction, butall the twitches in the world do not acancellation make.”

Stephen Lewis, UN Special Envoy forHIV/AIDS in Africa, Ottawa, February 11, 2005.13

The challenge of the MillenniumDeclaration and the MDGs at the five-year review in 2005 is two-fold: theprovision of magnificently increased

resources whether through innovativeforms of financing, debt cancellation orexpanded aid; and a significant alterationin policies and conditionalities whichrestrict the ability of the governments ofpoor countries to address poverty,hunger, environmental ruin, humanrights, and the demand for decent liveli-hoods, and which sustain and recreatepoverty by unjust international andnational trade and investment practices.

Governments of a number of prosperouscountries continue to invest theirresources in distorted and destructivefashion, rather than in human develop-ment. The New York Times recently tookthe US government to task, noting,“America launched its war on terror afterSeptember 11, but did not bother tolook at some of the deeper causes ofglobal instability. This country is goingto spend more than $400 billion onthe military this year, and another $100 billion or so for military operationsin Iraq and Afghanistan. But that amountis never going to buy Americans peace ifthe government continues to spend ananemic $16 billion—the Pentagonbudget is 25 times that size—in foreignaid that addresses the plight of thepoorest of the world’s poor.”14

The Canadian federal budget embodiesproportions less embarrassing but whichparallel the heightened investment indefence in comparison with that ininternational assistance.

The most recent (February 2005)meeting of the G-7 Finance Ministersfailed to agree on cancellation of Africa’sdebt, for example. As Stephen Lewis, theUN Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africacommented, “It seems to take the G-7no effort to cancel huge chunks of Iraqidebt, or to instantly fashion an offer of


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moratorium on the servicing of debt forthe countries devastated by the tsunami.But when it comes to Africa, everythingtakes forever.”15

Occasion for initiative: Financing development“The stakes are high: either we come outof this process with a renewed andstrengthened financing system for fight-ing poverty; or we will, in fact, havegiven up on achieving the MDGs.”

Joint statement by Brazil, Chile, France, Germany, and Spain, February 11, 2005.16

At the level of global policy, there areinitiatives that spur some hope:Presidents Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva ofBrazil and Jacques Chirac of Francelaunched “Action Against Poverty andHunger” in 2004. UK ExchequerChancellor Gordon Brown has pressedfor an International Financing Facility tobring greater security and predictabilityto international assistance, and the UKand Canada have promised relief ondebt servicing to the poorest countriesto 2015 if others among the rich willpitch in.

The Action Against Poverty and Hungerinitiative was launched by Brazil, France,Chile and Spain, and gained initialsupport from more than 100 heads ofgovernment. Renewed in 2005 with theadded support of Germany, the initiativeemphasizes innovation, recognizing theneed for more resources from diversesources, endorsing objectives of stabilityand predictability in resource flows,endorsing the International FinanceFacility and calling for the creation of

international taxes, nationally appliedand internationally coordinated. Theabsence, to date of active participationby Canada and the United States fromthe initiative is regrettable.

The initiative’s most recent expression, ajoint statement by Brazil, Chile, France,Germany and Spain, underlines the needfor more resources, and the opportunityto use a variety of channels to assurethem, with emphasis on new channels.

To this end, the proponent leaderssuggest a menu of options, includingthe International Finance Facility asproposed by the UK. But they also renewthe call for the creation of internationaltaxes, nationally applied and internation-ally coordinated. Their priorities forconsideration are a levy on internationalfinancial transactions (a currency transac-tions tax or Tobin tax); a tax on conven-tional weapons purchases; and a levy onair transport. To provide greater stabilityand predictability for aid-receivingcountries, they propose that just asgovernments finance internationalfinancial institutions (IFIs) through statu-tory or mandatory contributions, basedon explicitly burden-sharing rules, thatthe same principle be applied to thegranting of funds to “those programsand global funds most directly involvedin the fight against hunger and povertyand the implementation of the MDGs.”

While universal participation would beoptimum, the proponents suggest that inthe short run, a differentiated approach,using the full opportunities in their menuin a coordinated manner, with coalitionsof those countries sharing commonobjectives, would be a way of securinga breakthrough to a new era. “Whileworking on establishing the bases for anintegrated approach along the linesdescribed above, and, ultimately,


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creating financing schemes withuniversal participation, we believe thatthe launching of pilot projects in thenext few months would both meeturgent needs and help to trigger a morebroad-based and general process.”17

The July meeting of the G-7/-8 heads ofgovernment in Gleneagles, Scotland islikely to have a decisive effect on anyproposals for innovation and on theprospects for a successful result at theMillennium Review Summit. The G-7/-8Summit, hosted by the UK government,and informed by the report of the UKCommission for Africa presents a signalopportunity for initiative and innovation.

While G-7/-8 meetings often occur insecure settings, far removed from publicaccess or participation, a global people’scampaign to elicit decisive action ondebt, trade and aid is gaining widespreadsupport. Whether the experience of theJubilee campaign, in raising debt on theinternational agenda, can be repeated orexceeded hangs in the balance.

Civil Society, the Declaration andthe GoalsThe North-South Institute is in the fifthyear of a major project monitoring andreviewing the state of civil societyengagement with the MillenniumDeclaration and the MDGs. The project—We the peoples…—has been developedin partnership with the World Federationof United Nations Associations (WFUNA)and in collaboration with the UN’sMillennium Campaign, the UNDepartment of Public Information, andthe UN Non-Governmental LiaisonService (NGLS). We the peoples… involvesan e-survey of hundreds of civil society

organizations worldwide, review of keyCSO statements and studies, and annualreports on civil society engagement.18

The contributions to We the peoples...testify to an engagement that isincreasingly intense and remarkablydiverse. Whether reclaiming land foragriculture, defending forest reservesand public control of water services,extending AIDS prevention, CSOs arecontributing mightily to the accomplish-ment of targets, particularly wheregovernments and international bodiesare providing encouragement,recognition and support.

This engagement, in many cases, is acritical one. Many CSOs have long beenworking in the areas of poverty, health,education which are focuses of theMDGs, and have noted the limitations ofthe goals, both in the manner in whichthey were developed and in their modestand relatively narrow objectives.

Critical engagement has led some CSOsto reject the MDGs, while othersapproach them in a tactical fashion. Anumber of organizations and coalitionshave developed approaches best summa-rized as “MDGs +”. In some cases, thePacific islands, for example, this hasmeant adapting the goals to regionalrealities, raising targets in some areas,or adding in dimensions where they arelacking. In others, like the Philippines, ithas meant going both broader anddeeper, establishing nationallyappropriate criteria for the quality ofdevelopment and life, and engagingacademic and other expertise in takingthe goals from the national to regionaland municipal levels, and posing chal-lenges to authorities at each level fortheir accomplishment.


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Rapidly multiplying networks are utilizingthe MDGs and the Declaration as anopportunity for monitoring and evaluatinggovernment performance. Whether inDar es Salaam or Brussels, “shadow”reports on policy and implementation are emerging, and advocacy in nationalas well as international theatres isintensifying.

We are witnessing the developmentof global and national coalitionscampaigning for significant change Northand South. The Global Call to ActionAgainst Poverty (GCAP) internationally,the “One” Campaign in the UnitedStates, “Make Poverty History” in Canadaand the UK, among others havelaunched campaigns for debt cancella-tion, more and better aid and tradejustice in 2005. Sector-specific networksin such areas as trade, “Make AIDSHistory,” and Education Action Week areanimating campaigns. The G-8 meetingin Gleneagles, Scotland in July, theGeneral Assembly Millennium ReviewSummit in September, and the WTOMinisterial in Hong Kong in Decemberare the targets of worldwide “whiteband” action days, July 1, September 10,and December 10.19

Civil society organizations have alsoresponded to the post-Declaration call ofthe UN Secretary-General for initiativesregarding their contribution to peaceand security.

Through a series of 15 regional consulta-tive processes, the experiences of civilsociety networks in preventing andresolving conflicts, reconstruction andbuilding peace are being reported,evaluated, and utilized in buildingproposals for global action. The GlobalPartnership for the Prevention of ArmedConflict is bringing these contributionstogether in a global conference at the

UN (July 19-21, 2005) From Reaction toPrevention: Civil Society ForgingPartnerships to Prevent Armed Conflictand Build Peace.20

The response in many countries to thehumanitarian emergency in the wake ofthe Indian Ocean tsunami demonstrateda reserve of positive energy and publicsupport for a more generous andeffective response to poverty, hunger,environmental threat, and the provisionof decent livelihoods. The year 2005began with the response to the tragicshock of the tsunami, a dramatic chal-lenge to the global community. Perhapsthe response in policy change, resourceenlargement, and strengthened solidarityduring 2005 will mean that the yearends with hope radically reinforced.

Beyond 2005As the UN Secretary-General and othershave repeatedly stated, 2005 may yieldfailure. Failure to meet the demandsnecessary to meet even the modesttargets of the MDGs. As has oftenhappened, those with resources andpower may express “MDG fatigue” andchange the game.

Much more advisable would be amodification, deepening, and radicalizingof the goals and the policy frameworkswhich might enable their fulfilment. TheSecretary-General proposes that theSeptember 2005 Summit agree on a“pact for action, to which all nationssubscribe and on which all can bejudged”. He further suggests that theEconomic and Social Council holdannual ministerial-level “assessments ofprogress towards agreed developmentgoals, particularly the MillenniumDevelopment Goals”.21 Will Canadachampion definite targets and timetable


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and regular ministerial review? It couldplay a vital role in building a coalition ofwilling nations.

JOHN W. FOSTER is a Principal Researcher(Civil Society) with The North-SouthInstitute. He joined the Institute in 2000. Hisearlier career included 17 years as a socialjustice policy officer with the United Churchof Canada and more than seven years asCEO of Oxfam-Canada. He served as anNGO representative on the Canadian dele-gation to the Copenhagen Summit on SocialDevelopment in 1995 and the GeneralAssembly Review of that Summit in 2000.He holds a PhD in History from theUniversity of Toronto and has done post-graduate work as a visiting scholar at theCenter for US-Mexican Studies at theUniversity of California, San Diego.

Endnotes1 Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs,

Global Partnerships for Development.Progress Report by Norway 2004. Oslo. 2005.

2 United Nations, A more secure world:Our shared responsibility. Report of theSecretary-General’s High-level Panel onThreats, Challenges and Change (NewYork: UN, 2004).

3 UN Millennium Project, Investing indevelopment: A practical plan to achieve theMillennium Development Goals (New York:UN, 2005), p.1.

4 Mirjam van Reisen, The MillenniumDevelopment Goals. A Reality Check(Brussels/Montevideo: EEPA, September,2004).

5 Further elaboration of the limitations ofthe MDGs can be found in We thepeoples…2005. Mobilizing for change:Messages from Civil Society Available atwww.nsi-ins.ca.

6 Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, p. 2.

7 OECD. “Official Development Assistanceincreases further—but 2006 targets still achallenge” PAC/COM NEWS 2005) 12.Paris. 11 April 2005.

8 United Nations, In larger freedom: towardsdevelopment, security and human rights for all. Report of the Secretary-General.A/59/2005. (New York: UN, 2005).

9 Ibid., and UN, A more secure world: Ourshared responsibility and UN MillenniumProject, Investing in development.

10 UN, A more secure world, p. 2.

11 UN Millennium Project, p. 2.

12 Colin Bradford, rappporteur, MobilizingResources for The Millennium DevelopmentGoals. Report of the Helsinki Process onGlobalization and Democracy Track on“Global Economic Agenda” (Helsinki:Finish Ministry of Foreign Relations,2005).

13 Statement issued by Stephen Lewis, UNSpecial Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa, onthe occasion of the launch in Canada ofthe “Make Poverty History” campaign,at a press conference in Ottawa,February 11, 2005.

14 “Thousands Died in Africa Yesterday.”Editorial, The New York Times, February27, 2005.

15 Lewis. February 11, 2005.

16 Joint statement by Brazil, Chile, France,Germany, and Spain, February 11, 2005.

17 Ibid.


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18 We the peoples has benefited from thegenerous support of the RockefellerBrothers Fund, CIDA, the Foreign Ministryof Sweden, the Canadian CatholicOrganization for Development andPeace, Rights and Democracy, theUN Millennium Campaign, and theCommonwealth Foundation.

19 Information on the Global Call can befound at www.whiteband.org. TheCanadian element in the global effort isfound at www.makepovertyhistory.ca.

20 The Global Partnership maintains a web-site at www.gppac.net. See also theEuropean Centre for Conflict Preventionwww.euconflict.org.

21 UN, In larger freedom: towards develop-ment, security and human rights for all, pp. 22, 44.


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