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| Flying out of poverty | |
15 Sep 2005
The world not only needs more money for development, it also needs to find new ways of raising it, a group of countries led by Brazil and France argued as they announced "innovative" development financing projects at the United Nations World Summit. French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin said his country plans to establish a "solidarity contribution" for all passengers flying out of French airports, with the money going to fund development projects, particularly for fighting HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis. The original objective of the three-day summit, which runs through Friday, was to review progress made by the world's poorer nations on the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) set in 2000, which include halving extreme poverty and hunger by 2015, and halting the spread of HIV/AIDS, malaria and other major diseases. Just five euros from all economy class passengers and 20 euros for those flying business and first class could bring 10 billion euros in aid funding each year, the French premier, standing in for recovering President Jacques Chirac, told a news conference.. Even just three billion euros could double the current fund for fighting HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis, Villepin said. The French government will try to push the measure through parliament by next year, he added. Chile's President Ricardo Lagos has signed on to the initiative announcing that as of Jan. 1, 2006, all passengers boarding international flights out of Chile will pay an additional two dollars, which will go to increase the country's development resources. Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said Brazil was also looking into raising the "flight" tax, but mainly pushed for worldwide free remittances for migrant workers: "We want the money to reach the recipients intact." "Innovative financing mechanisms can play an important role to increase and supplement traditional sources of finance," stressed the statement signed by France, Brazil, Chile, Germany and Spain and backed by 66 other countries. Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero put it more plainly: "Each of us representing governments are going to be explaining to our citizens that it is from their resources, from their taxes... that we are going to be allocating much, much more money to fighting hunger and poverty." The countries said they would also consider the British-backed International Finance Facility as a means to frontload resources for development. But delegates from developing countries said they feared these new proposals were being put forward to mask the fact that official development aid (ODA) was still far from what it needs to be for the world to achieve the Millennium Development Goals. George Anyango, who heads the Kenyan government's push to achieve the MDGs, said there was great concern that the innovative proposals would be made in lieu of, rather than in addition to, increased ODA. Both France and Brazil tried to dispel that fear and announced continuing support for increased aid. Meanwhile, the developing world is continuing to suffer from negative transfers, underlined Jamaica's Prime Minister Percival James Patterson, addressing the General Assembly's high-level dialogue on financing for development on behalf of the Group of 77, the largest coalition of developing countries at the U.N. "One explanation for this is that, while resources from developing countries flow to developed countries without impediments, the initiatives and programmes of developed countries which would transfer resources or provide access to developing countries have either been negligible, bogged down in negotiations, or ringed with strict policy conditionalities," he said in a hard-hitting speech. Since the 2000 Millennium Summit alone, the developing countries have made total net transfers of over 1.174 trillion dollars to the developed countries, he said. Patterson lamented that there had been "no progress" in the World Trade Organisation's Doha Development round, with U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan himself admitting the need for further discussions on trade in his speech to the assembly. "Trade is at the heart of it all," Kenya's Anyango told TerraViva. President George W. Bush said the United States was now prepared to "eliminate all tariffs, subsidies and other barriers to free flow of goods and services as other nations do the same." "This is key to overcoming poverty in the world's poorest nations," said Bush. Even if industrialised countries were to lift their "damaging" protectionist policies, that would still not be enough, warned Rodrigo de Rato, managing director of the International Monetary Fund, stating that developing countries also had to address the question of trade barriers. "Trade between these countries is among the most expensive in the world," said de Rato. "All countries, including developing countries, need to work together to lower trade barriers and eliminate trade-distorting subsidies." To help developing countries "that may suffer from the multilateral liberalisation, the IMF has set up the Trade Integration Mechanism," de Rato said. Later Wednesday, China announced plans to grant zero tariff treatment for most exports from all the 39 "Least Developed Countries" having diplomatic relations with Beijing. President Hu Jintao said China would also expand aid programmes to heavily indebted poor countries (HIPC). Whether by old or new means, Jamaica's Patterson said the world cannot afford to keep the current pace in financing development. "It should by now be abundantly clear to all of us that we cannot cross this development financing chasm by any series of small steps," he told world leaders. "We need to take a giant step." By Harmonie Toros - IPS/TerraViva* This story was produced for the TerraViva Millennium Development Goals Journal. (END/2005) TerraViva Millennium Development Goals Journal. |
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