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UN:
BAN KI-MOON CONVENES 'UNPRECEDENTED' MEETING TO BOOST AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT:
13/09/2007 (MaximsNews.com, U.N.) |
UNITED NATIONS - / www.MaximsNews.com@
U.N./
- 13 September 2007 –
With the whole of sub-Saharan Africa currently
off track for meeting a single one of the ambitious goals the world has set
itself for slashing poverty, hunger, disease and illiteracy by 2015,
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is convening an unprecedented meeting of
development leaders on Friday to put the continent back on the rails to
progress.
The MDG
Africa Steering Group was set up by Mr. Ban after a report in June showed that
despite faster growth and strengthened institutions, Africa at its present rate
would fail to achieve any of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) adopted by
the UN Millennium Summit in 2000.
“It is
an unprecedented gathering bringing together the heads, the apex I would say, of
the entire international development system,” UN Development Programme (UNDP)
official Guido Schmidt-Traub told a news briefing today.
The
inaugural meeting will bring together leaders from the World Bank, the
International Monetary Fund (IMF), the European Commission, the African Union,
the African Development Bank, the UN Development Group, which is chaired by UNDP,
and the Islamic Development Bank.
The
meeting will focus on three objectives: the international system’s support for
African governments in implementing practical programmes to achieve the MDGs in
five areas – health, education, infrastructure, agriculture and food security;
the need to ensure aid predictability so that African governments can plan years
ahead for additional hospitals, schools and training doctors, teachers and
nurses; and enhancing collaboration among the Group’s members at the country
level.
Mr.
Schmidt-Traub noted that the June report highlighted some of the success stories
coming out Africa. “There are actually quite a few,” he said. “That is the
good news and the challenge now is to scale up these success stories, and that
can be done simply by implementing existing commitments.
“The
key message today is that existing commitments if fully implemented are enough
and sufficient to achieve the MDGs in the whole of Africa and so the focus now
has to be squarely on implementation,” he added.
In all
cases, the concerted follow-through needs to be broader, more effective and
scaled up, he stressed. “The meeting itself will focus on getting a fuller
understanding of the objectives and then really deciding on how to follow
through,” he said.
The
follow-through will be led by a second group called the MDG Africa Working
Group, led by the Deputy Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro, which will meet for
the first time on 20 September, involving senior operational leaders of the
Group’s organizations plus other bodies such as the 30-member Organization for
Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) of industrialized, market-economy
countries.
Successes
cited by the June report included the expanded AIDS treatment, increased
agricultural productivity, rising school enrolment and access to water and
sanitation.
These
“demonstrate that rapid progress is possible when sound national policies are
met with full support, including increased development assistance, from the
international system,” the Group said in a media advisory.
Stressing
the need for predictability in aid, it noted that although the G8 summit of
industrial nations in 2005 promised to increase Official Development Assistance
to Africa to $50 billion annually by 2010, African countries still do not know
how this promise will translate into their country-level budgeting flows.
Labels: United
Nations, U.N.,
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