The UN's Millennium Development Goals (MDG) Gap Task Force has issued its 2012 report, calling for action to double aid levels to meet previous commitments, and to boost progress on MDGs through new international debt relief initiatives for 20 low-income and vulnerable countries; putting in place at least partial agreements to reduce inequities in the multilateral trading system; and stepping up efforts to improve the availability and affordability of essential medicines in developing countries.
20 September 2012: The UN reported a decline in development aid for the first time in many years, highlighting a gap of US$167 billion between development aid targets and actual commitments, in the 2012 report of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) Gap Task Force, which is titled “The Global Partnership for Development: Making Rhetoric a Reality.”
The report, written by experts from around 50 UN and other intergovernmental entities, analyzes progress regarding international commitments in the areas of official development assistance (ODA), market access and trade, debt sustainability, access to essential medicines, and access to new technologies including Information and Communication Technologies (ICT).
The authors say that, while the international community has met global targets on poverty, water, slums and parity between girls and boys in primary education, meeting the remaining targets by 2015 will be possible only with adequate international support.
The report notes the negative impact of the global financial crisis on ODA, and that total ODA would have to double to about US$300 billion in order to meet the UN target of 0.7 per cent of donor country gross national income, with least developed countries (LDCs) receiving a quarter of this amount. It further urges donors and multilateral organizations to develop publicly available multi-year spending plans, in order to increase transparency and reduce volatility of aid flows.
Other recommendations in the report include: new international debt relief initiatives for 20 low-income and vulnerable countries; putting in place at least partial agreements to reduce inequities in the multilateral trading system; and boosting efforts to improve the availability and affordability of essential medicines in developing countries. The authors propose that the Development Cooperation Forum of the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) should be the venue for discussions on improving aid effectiveness, strengthening mutual accountability for development results, and financing for development.
At the report launch in New York, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon emphasized the mutual gains to be enjoyed from improving standards of living in poorer countries, and called on the international community to avoid placing “the burden of fiscal austerity on the backs of the poor.”
Secretary-General Ban established the MDG Gap Task Force in 2007 to track the progress of the eighth MDG on strengthening the global partnership for development. The MDG Gap Task Force recently launched a web-based platform, “Tracking Support for the MDGs,” to enhance accountability for delivery of commitments in support of the MDGs. [Publication: The Global Partnership for Development: Making Rhetoric a Reality] [UN press release] [Secretary-General’s remarks] [Website: Tracking Support for the MDGs]