Africa focus of UN forum but Pacific fares worse

from the Sydney Morning Herald

by Kirsty Needham

AFRICA will take centre stage at a United Nations forum this week as world leaders mark the halfway point to the Millennium Development Goals' target date of eradicating poverty by 2015, amid spiralling food and fuel prices.

The Pacific region is also lagging badly in meeting the goals, and Australia's approach towards aid for the region has again been criticised.

Just before a September 25 UN meeting at which governments are expected to increase their commitments to meeting the millennium goals, a Lowy Institute report says Australian aid is ineffective in helping Pacific countries meet the goals.

Fifty per cent of the population of Papua New Guinea live below the poverty line, compared to 41 per cent in sub-Sahara Africa, the report says. "Papua New Guinea is on Africa standards, if not higher, and it is quite worrying for Australia, given they are our nearest neighbour," said the Melanesia program director at the Lowy Institute, Jenny Hayward-Jones.

Ms Hayward-Jones said she welcomed the shift in rhetoric by the Rudd Government to Pacific partnerships that tied aid to improved governance, but she said this "doesn't get away from the problem that aid continues to be delivered from government to government".

Australia will spend $999.5 million on aid in the Pacific this year, but only a small proportion of that will go towards private sector initiatives. Half of the aid money is spent on technical assistance. Ms Hayward-Jones says investing in small businesses, microcredit schemes, and public-private partnerships to maintain roads and ports and provide health and education services, would produce more tangible benefits.

Following the lead of the US and Britain, the Australian Government could encourage corporate sector investment in its developing neighbours, she said.

The head of the UN Development Program's Pacific centre, Gary Wiseman, told the Fiji Times the Pacific had been quite weak in meeting the millennium goals, and food and fuel price rises had made things worse.

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