The next step in Making Poverty History

international | anti-capitalism | news report Thursday September 08, 2005 14:24 by Michael

Following Edinburgh, the next World Week of action on poverty is about to begin.

All night sit-out to coincide with the below, tomorrow Friday, Sept 9th, 2005 – Government Buildings, Merrion St. 6pm to 6am

see Events section:

http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=71857

The next step in making poverty history is about to happen. How many steps there will be, unfortunately only history will tell. We must all work to make sure there are as few steps as possible as tens of thousands continue to die every day from poverty related causes.

Following the G8 summit in Edinburgh at the start of July and all the hyped up promises beforehand the next major world summit takes place in New York on Sept 14th to 16th as Heads of State from around the world will converge on New York for the Millennium Review Summit. This is the first official chance the world has to check in with itself and find out how progress is going on achieving the Millennium Development Goals. It is vital that every move the G8 makes on poverty is tracked. Their promises vs. what they actually do must be exposed in the higest possible fashion to the general public. If the general public continue to elect these leaders in, they will at least be doing so consciously of what they are indirectly doing to the world through the leaders they elect.

http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/

Set in 2000, this list of eight targets is supposed to be achieved by 2015. With five years gone, and only ten to go, are we on track and what needs to happen to make sure we get there? This is one of the big sets of questions the politicians will be looking at. Running alongside the MDG discussions, there is a reform process happening within the UN itself. Big issues like who should be on the Security Council, and how should the UN monitor and react to Human Rights abuses are also being discussed.

At the end of the Summit there will be a declaration, agreed by all the Heads of State, which will state what the community of nations believes is important, and what they think needs to change. A blueprint, in many ways, for what will happen at an international level in the coming few years. It won't, in itself, do much on the aid, trade and debt agenda, but it will enshrine certain principles and actions as agreed norms, and will be the standard bearer for international agreements on a range of important issues for years to come. That's why it is important we get action to eradicate world poverty. To find out more about the UN and the Millennium Development Goals go to www.undp.org/mdg/

What MAKEPOVERTY HISTORY wants to see achieved:-

To achieve the MDGs, there needs to be a fundamental change in the way the world works. We want the Heads of State to recognise this at the UN Summit and come to some fundamental agreements about how things will change in future. As we have been saying throughout the year so far, we base our demands around the need for more and better aid, dropping the debt, and trade justice. We will be linking in with the Global Campaign for Action Against Poverty to put pressure on the UN itself, and on other governments around the world. At the UN Summit the Taoiseach should announce by when Ireland will meet our obligation of spending 0.7% of GNP in overseas aid.

World Bank / IMF Meetings:-

On 24-25 September the World Bank (WB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) will hold their Annual Meetings in Washington, attended for Ireland by Brian Cowen, Minister of Finance. MAKEPOVERTYHISTORY believes that these meetings are a crucial opportunity to make progress on key issues for the campaign: making sure that multilateral debt is fully cancelled; ending economic policy conditionality; and making the Bank and Fund more democratic.

Making sure that multilateral debt is fully cancelled:-

We share the Irish government’s concern that the countries receiving debt cancellation will not receive the benefits. Instead, all low income countries will be pitted against each other and forced to compete for the extra donor money to be provided. The need for equity of treatment of all low income countries is given as a rationale. We would argue that equity should be achieved by: a) providing debt cancellation for all countries where unpayble debt is hindering poverty eradication; b) providing the extra aid needed to all impoverished countries. Debt cancellation must be financed from additional resources. We believe that the G8 proposal should be extended beyond HIPCs to cover all low income countries.

Ending economic policy conditionality:-

Both the World Bank and the IMF make aid and debt relief conditional on poor countries adopting particular economic and trade policies, such as privatisation, deregulation and trade liberalisation. This has resulted in cuts in vital public spending and in the privatisation of basic services which have often been very damaging for many poor countries.

Over the past 6 months, the World Bank has been reviewing its policy of such conditionality in its financing for developing countries. The findings from this review are due to be considered by the Board of Governors at the Annual Meetings in September. This meeting will be crucial in determining whether the Bank and the IMF change their conditionality policy and practice, or whether it will be business as usual with damaging economic policy conditions continuing to be imposed on poor countries.

Making the WB and IMF more democratic:-

The governance of both the Bank and the IMF are highly skewed towards rich countries, with the influence of rich countries being disproportionate to that of poor countries. The bulk of votes and seats on the governing bodies of the institutions are allocated according to economic wealth, giving the world's eight richest countries a seat on each board and the US a veto over major decisions.

Recently, despite the Commission for Africa's recommendation of an open recruitment process for the heads of the two institutions, the appointment of Paul Wolfowitz as head of the World Bank, followed the familiar pattern of the complete lack of a transparent and democratic process. The US simply hand-picked Wolfowitz for the top job.

Despite a growing agreement that the participation of developing countries in the decision-making of the World Bank and IMF has to be strengthened, the talk has not translated into action. MAKEPOVERTYHISTORY believes that the two institutions should be made more democratic, by making their decision-making processes more transparent, ensuring proper parliamentary scrutiny of their activities (both in rich and in developing countries) and by opening up the process for choosing the heads of both agencies so that selection is based on merit, regardless of nationality.

For more information:
www.debtireland.org