As we seek to make a new start in Transatlantic relations, we
should follow the advice of President John F. Kennedy and explore
what problems unite us instead of belaboring those that divide us.
I believe that the poverty gap between the developed and the
developing world is one of the key common challenges on which
we must work together as partners to make a real difference to
today’s world.
If the European Union and the United States were to face
these challenges together, through the United Nations, we would
create a leverage of unprecedented strength and scope. The United
Nations is the only multilateral organization with the necessary moral and political
authority, even though it will admittedly have to be reformed if it is to become a fully
recognized provider of legitimacy.
The recent report by Jeffrey Sachs,
Investing in Development: A Practical
Plan to Achieve the Millennium Development
Goals, contains bald and distressing
figures.More than one billion people live
on less than $1.00 a day; eleven million
children, most of them under five, die
each year; more than six million of these
deaths are due to preventable diseases,
such as malaria, diarrhea and pneumonia;
more than one billion people do not
have access to safe water; more than 100
million children do not attend primary
school; and nearly 600 million women
are illiterate.
In 2000, the world’s leaders agreed to
the so-called Millennium Development
Goals to reduce poverty, fight disease
and hunger, get girls into school and give
more people access to safe water by 2015.
Sub-Saharan Africa is the region farthest
from meeting these goals, and unless
the international community acts now
in a big way, Africa will not meet this
challenge.
But this is no time to despair. For
Sub-Saharan Africa, as for everywhere
else, the world already has the weapons
needed to win this fight. And many of
them are entirely affordable: insect nets
to combat malaria, vaccinations to prevent
infectious disease, anti-retroviral
therapies to fight AIDS, fertilizers and
agro-forestry to raise crop yields, bore
wells for safe drinking water and diesel
generators for village electricity. No international
leader can today hide behind
the excuse of ignorance.
While the challenge is immense, we
have a great opportunity to meet it. In
July, the G-8 will meet in the UK with
Africa at the top of the agenda. In September,
there will be an important highlevel
UN meeting on the Millennium
Development Goals in New York. In December,
the debate will continue at the
World Trade Organization ministerial
meeting in Hong Kong, where the international
community will strive to make
progress in the Doha Development
Agenda of international trade talks.
The European Union and the United
States are the key actors in this process.
In 2003, the European Union and its
member states provided 55 percent of
total Official Development Assistance,
and the United States is the largest single
bilateral donor in the world, with nearly
25 percent. That means that the European
Union and the United States together
provide almost 80 percent of
global development aid.
On both sides of the Atlantic, there
are always vocal critics of development
aid. People ask what they can gain from
it, and why they should help people in
countries of which they have never
heard.We need to work together to combat
this ignorance, and to show that in
today’s world we face global problems
that require global solutions. Many of
these problems, which are intimately
linked to development, also affect people
in the richer countries. These are three
prime examples:
Security and development. The link
between security and development was
brought home by the terrorist attacks of
September11 2001, which affected not
only America, but also the whole world.
There is an ongoing debate on both sides
of the Atlantic about how best to respond
to the threat of terrorism: by focusing
on reinforcing security measure
or by addressing the underlying causes
of instability, which are heightened by
poverty and despair.
“We cannot guarantee
our own security
without investing in the
develpment of others”
It is clear that security and development
go hand in hand.We cannot have
development without security, but,
equally, we cannot guarantee our own
security without investing in the development
of others. Conflict prevention
and conflict resolution can bring huge
long-term benefits in terms of economic
and social development. By creating
more stable societies in other countries
around the world, we help to reduce
the future security threats to our own
countries.
Trade and development. Trade liberalization
is essential to promote
growth and development worldwide, so
as to improve standards of living and reduce
poverty, provided that a framework
of rules allows the benefits of open trade
to be fairly distributed. As trade is global,
so must be the rules.
As its name suggests, the current
round of international trade negotiations,
the Doha Development Agenda,
is intended to ensure that freer trade
contributes more to development. On
our side, I work very closely with my colleague,
Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson,
who is committed to making
trade policy a positive contribution to
the development process of poor countries.
Our top trade priority on both
sides of the Atlantic must be to conclude
the Doha Round in a way that lives up to
its ambition. The Hong Kong meeting
will test our determination to do so.
“The response of the
international community
to the tsunami disaster
in the Indian Ocean
has disproved claims
of ‘aid fatigue’ ”
Health and development. In an era
afflicted by the pandemic of HIV/AIDS,
we plainly need to make urgent progress
on health and development. We fully
support the huge American investment
in the Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief.
The European Union is putting priority
on tackling the big three killer diseases in
developing countries: HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis
and malaria. As the biggest
donors, the European Union and the
United States both back the Global Fund
that has been set up to address these
scourges.
In a global world, disease travels as
fast as human beings.We must work urgently
with partners across the world to
combat disease and to avoid the millions
of deaths in the poorer countries from
diseases for which simple cures often
exist in the richer nations. For many of
these illnesses, the solution is to make
vaccinations and drugs affordable in the
developing world.
In the European Union, we must
elaborate a new vision for development
policy, based on an honest assessment of
which past policies have worked and
which have not. We need not only new
ideas, but also new money. If we are serious
about the Millennium Development
Goals, now is the time to deliver
on them.
A number of ideas are circulating as
to how we can finance these goals. All
contributions to the debate are welcome,
but we must not let ourselves be distracted
from the challenge of meeting
the monetary commitments.We cannot
wait until tomorrow if we are to fulfill
the promises we have made for 2015.
Much has been said, in both Europe
and America, about “aid fatigue.” But the
response of the international community
to the tsunami disaster in the Indian
Ocean in December 2004 has proved
the exact opposite. The overwhelming
destruction left all of us shocked and
determined to assist. The American
and European peoples have shown
tremendous compassion and global
responsibility.
We must build on this positive attitude
to mobilize adequate levels of resources
for the “silent tsunamis” that are
causing even greater levels of suffering
and poverty.We should look hard at the
whole development agenda and identify
policies and programs on which the European
Union and the United States can
work together.We must work especially
hard on Africa, in line with the new
focus that the European Union is placing
on that continent.
In terms of security and development,
we must unite in strengthening
Africa’s governance and in helping Africa
to help itself. Africa now has structures
in place to deal with conflict prevention,
management and resolution. The
African Union and regional organizations,
such as the Economic Community
of West African States (ECOWAS), have
shown that they are willing and able to
assume responsibility for African peace
and security, for instance, in Burundi,
Ivory Coast, Liberia and Sudan.
We must support countries that take
courageous steps toward establishing
peace as the precursor for development.
In Liberia, for example, ECOWAS peacekeeping
forces were decisive in restoring
peace and security. There is now a platform
on which to build economic
growth and prosperity. The European
Union and the United States should
work together to help these efforts.
There is a particular need to support
the structure of the African Union and
the new Economic Partnership for
African Development. In Europe, we
have made great strides toward speaking
with one voice.We should help Africa to
do so, too.
In terms of trade and development,
Africa is also lagging behind -
Sub-Saharan Africa’s share of world
trade has been declining for the past 30
years. For every dollar received in aid,
half has been lost as a result of deteriorating
terms of trade. If Sub-Saharan
Africa could regain just a one percent
share of global trade, it would earn $70
billion more in exports - nearly five
times the amount that the region receives
in foreign aid and debt relief.
The European Union is committed
to doing more bilaterally to build capacities
in these countries, so that they can
actually benefit from opportunities
created by trade liberalization in the
WTO.We already provide duty-free and
quota-free access to our markets for the
least developed countries.
Through economic partnership
agreements with countries in Africa, the
Caribbean and the Pacific, we support
regional integration that helps to overcome
the problems of markets that are
too small and the capacity constraints
that hamper integration into the world
economy. The U.S.-Africa Growth and
Opportunity Act also aims to address the
problems of marginalization. Together
we can do even better.
In terms of health and development,
Africa is certainly the place hardest
hit by disease and avoidable deaths.
In particular, we must reinforce our efforts
to combat HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis
and malaria by improving access to prevention,
vaccines and medicines.
There are hopeful signs.We are seeing
the emergence of a new generation
of African leaders who are committed to
democratic and economic reforms. The
African Union is starting to shape a
vision of development for Africa as a
whole, underpinned by a series of regional
organizations. A system of peer
review is in place, under which countries
monitor the progress of other governments.
In short, Africa is taking its future
into its own hands, and we must support
this process.We must make the next ten
years count. Let us build a new Transatlantic
Agenda for Development. Let us
put our common interests of security,
trade, health and development at the
heart of the EU-U.S. relationship. If we
try hard enough, we can achieve the
changes necessary to meet the Millennium
Development Goals by 2015. It is a
challenge that we must meet together.
Louis Michel is European Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid. He was previously
Deputy Prime Minister, Minister for Foreign Affairs and Minister for Institutional Reform of
Belgium (1999-2004). He has served as European Commissioner for Research, and has been a
member of both the lower and upper houses of the Belgian Parliament, where he led the Parti Réformateur
Libéral.
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