United Nations, Sept. 20: Budget-strapped rich donors will call for a rethink of strategies to make sure their aid funds are not wasted when world leaders meet this week to discuss UN goals to tackle global poverty.
A three-day summit of 140 leaders starting on Monday will appeal for stepped up efforts to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) — launched 10 years ago — by 2015.
While countries agree with the goals for slashing global poverty, rich nations struggling with high unemployment and rising debt, want the debate to focus on getting the best development results from anti-poverty programmes.
Of the eight goals, the United Nations agrees that the goal of halving poverty and hunger and cutting in half the number of people without clean water will be met. Progress on the other goals ranging from helping women and their newborns to environmental sustainability are mixed.
The global financial and economic recession has complicated the MDGs, forcing rich nations to cut aid budgets and slowing growth in poor countries hurt by the sharp drop in global trade and soaring prices for food and fuel as well as job losses.
The US aid chief, Mr Rajiv Shah, said it was time to rethink strategies for tackling poverty to focus on economic growth, accountability and fighting corruption. Mr Shah said the US President, Mr Barack Obama’s, administration, which remained committed to boost the aid budget to $52 billion from about $25 billion, was pushing for a new approach to making aid more effective.
He called for more rigorous accountability standards, programmes that emphasise local economic development over handouts and a more aggressive effort to bring new scientific and technological innovations into development work.