[UN] Chief Says Youth Key to Poverty Fight

from The Asian Tribune

By Thalif Deen - Inter Press Service

United Nations, (IPS): With less than two months before he steps down as secretary-general after a long 10-year tenure, Kofi Annan is disappointed that the international community is lagging behind in its much-touted Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), including a 50 percent reduction in extreme poverty and hunger by 2015.

"Even though every government endorsed the Millennium Development Goals," he says, "We are not making faster progress as we wanted."

At this rate, he warns, many of the goals will not be met, "so we need to re-affirm our commitment to these goals," which also include achieving universal primary education and combating HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases.

As part of this process of re-commitment, the United Nations has turned to the world's younger generation to increase awareness of the MDGs, and to help spread the word at the grassroots level.

A declaration adopted Tuesday at the conclusion of a three-day Global Youth Leadership Summit -- described as one of the largest assemblies of youth -- called on all 192 U.N. member states to fulfill commitments made at the U.N. Millennium Summit in September 2000.

"The older generation of leaders from around the world endorsed the Millennium Development Goals for 2015," said Djibril Diallo, chair of the summit, "but it will take the full commitment and talents of the younger generation to help achieve them."

According to the United Nations, younger people represent one-fourth of the world's six billion people, of which 86 percent live in the developing world.

The United Nations estimates that one in five youth live on less than a dollar a day, and about 45 percent live on less than two dollars a day.

Diallo described the summit as a "landmark event" because the 400 young delegates, ages 16 to 30, who came from 192 countries, will return to their home countries "as spokespersons for MDGs reaching out to their peers and new partners to take action to help achieve the MDGs".

At a press briefing Tuesday, Diallo told reporters that the United Nations had organised the summit as a way to create an interaction between generations, which was essential for the progress of the MDGs.

"All indications were that, unless something was done, many countries would not reach the MDGs by 2015, and the United Nations recognized the importance of the role of youth in that effort," he added.

As he surveyed the cavernous auditorium of the United Nations on the opening day of the summit, Annan declared that "this is the liveliest General Assembly Hall I've seen."

He reminded the young delegates that there are still more than a billion people living on less than a dollar a day. Three billion survive on less than two dollars a day, he said, and more than 100 million school-aged children are not in school.

Seven thousand young people become infected with HIV/AIDS. Every day, almost 30,000 children die of poverty. "These are grim statistics, but there are human faces behind them," Annan said.

"All that can be changed, if we work together to meet the Millennium Development Goals, we work together to fight poverty and if we all work together -- the governments, the private sector, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) -- to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, the blueprint agreed by all governments in the hope of creating a better tomorrow in the twenty-first century," Annan added.

He also told the assembly of youth: "That is where you, the young leaders, come in. Your voice and your organization, activity and energy can hold leaders to those pledges that they have made."

"I know you will not resign yourselves to a world where others die of hunger, remain illiterate and lack human dignity. We need to work in partnership with governments, the private sector and civil society," Annan declared.

Organized by the U.N. Office of Sport for Development and Peace, the summit was supported by Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade, and leaders of several charitable foundations and business organizations, including Mohan Lal Mittal, head of the Gita-Mohan Mittal Foundation, Hiroshi Matsumoto, president of the Inner Trip Reiyukai International (ITRI), a transnational NGO based in India and Japan, and John Gage of the U.S.-based Sun Microsystems.

"Having grown up in a tiny village of Rajasthan in India, and coming from a modest background, I have had first-hand experience of understanding the lack of basic necessities that people face in many other regions of the world," said Mittal, who is also patriarch of India's Mittal Steel Empire.

He said fighting poverty should not just be the purview of governments, international institutions or the private sector.

"Rather, we need to devise creative and pragmatic partnerships that improve economies, create businesses, build education systems and increase health care services," he noted.

Asked about the participation of the private sector, Diallo told reporters the United Nations always carefully studied its potential business partners to be sure they met ethical standards.

Last year, a 265-member team called the Millennium Task Force unveiled a global plan of action aimed at reducing poverty by half and radically improving the lives of at least one billion people by the year 2015.

A summary of the voluminous 3,000-page project, titled "A Practical Plan to Achieve the Millenniun Development Goals (MDGs)", listed a series of recommendations -- some of which were labeled "quick wins".

These include: the free mass distribution of malaria bed nets which can save the lives of up to one million children per year in sub-Saharan Africa; and ending user fees for primary schools and essential health services, compensated by increased donor aid as necessary.

At a much broader level, the recommendations also included the opening of high-income country markets to developing country exports; the creation of ambitious national development strategies; an increase in regional trade among poorer nations; elimination of debt; the provision of better quality aid; and a hefty increase in official development assistance (ODA).

But most of these recommendations remain unimplemented.

- Inter Press Service (IPS) News Agency -