[UK] Poverty targets missed by a mile

From The Mail and Guardian Online

Chancellor Gordon Brown admitted recently that Britain had failed to complete its ambitious development agenda in 2005. A five-point plan is to make good the omissions from a year in which British Prime Minister Tony Blair pledged to use his presidency of the G8 and European Union to champion the fight against poverty.

The chancellor said last year should be seen as the “start of something, not the end” and confessed that the deadlock in the global trade talks was “depressing”.

Brown highlighted five areas in which “urgent” action is required this year: debt relief, trade, the environ-ment, disaster relief and ensuring poor countries meet the United Nations millennium development goals for poverty reduction by 2015.

“We must learn from our achievements and our failures, not least the depressing lack of final agreements on trade,’’ he said.

Britain hoped that last year would see aid doubled to $50billion a year, 38 of the poorest countries given debt relief and a comprehensive deal to remove barriers to trade at the meeting of the World Trade Organisation in Hong Kong last month. Brown said he agrees with debt campaigners that more countries need debt relief and calls for 67 to be made eligible. So far, only 19 of the 38 countries identified as being in need of help have been granted clemency.

The United Kingdom is concerned that international focus will move on from development now that Russia has assumed the presidency of the G8. Brown supported the prime minister’s desire for an emergency G8 summit on trade with a call for a “January push by world leaders to restart and complete the trade talks”.

In the aftermath of the Indian Ocean tsunami and the earthquake in Pakistan, Brown said he would be pressing for a new $4billion to $5billion UN disaster relief and reconstruction fund -- in part bankrolled by oil producers that have benefited from rising energy prices -- at next month’s meeting of G8 finance ministers in Moscow.