This month's UN summit will give world leaders a chance to recommit to development goals set in 2000 - and ensure they happen, writes Brian Scott
Five years ago, heads of government from around the world came together at the millennium summit in New York to commit to working towards a solution to global poverty. Now the largest gathering of world leaders in history will again come together at a UN world summit to see how well they have done. They will also be looking at a wide agenda of reform of the United Nations.
Key measures under discussion to improve the lives of ordinary people around the world include the actions necessary to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, the responsibility to protect civilians from crimes against humanity, control of the arms trade and an improvement in the response to humanitarian disasters.
A major purpose of the summit is to review progress on meeting the eight development goals. These goals represent what the international community has agreed must be done by 2015 in order to eventually defeat poverty.
A failure to meet these goals would be a terrible indictment of the international community. These most basic of goals include halving hunger, reduce by three-quarters the amount of women who die in childbirth, and halving those who live in extreme poverty (on less than $1 a day) by 2015. For the sake of all those people, now is the time for world leaders to recommit to these goals and to make them happen.
Progress on achieving the development goals has been much too slow. Already, one of the goals - to achieve equal numbers of boys and girls in education by 2005 - has been missed, and 40 per cent of countries will still not attain gender equality in enrolments even by 2015. Sixty million girls do not have a primary-school place and some 86 countries are not on track to achieve the second goal, which calls for universal primary education by 2015.
Furthermore, despite the promises made at the G8 summit (and before) to cancel some of the debts of 18 of the poorest countries and to deliver an additional $50 billion in aid by 2010, we are still well short of the financing needed to achieve the goals. An additional $50 billion is needed this year in order to get us on track to meet the development goals by 2015. But, unfortunately, little action appears to be forthcoming, with weak language on aid, trade and debt. The United States is even objecting to references to the development goals. The international community urgently needs to do better than this if it is to keep its promise to the world's poor.
To bring it home, a renewed commitment by Ireland to spending 0.7 per cent of its national income on overseas aid by 2010 at the latest could provide some much-needed extra momentum and leadership in providing the financing to meet the goals.
Also on the agenda is the international community's responsibility to protect civilians. Last year was the 10th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide. It has been said repeatedly that this should never happen again. Rwanda is one of the states backing the proposal to enshrine the so-called "responsibility to protect" in international law. This, if adopted, would make absolutely clear the international community's obligation to intervene to protect people from genocide and crimes against humanity if their governments are unable or unwilling to do so. There would be no more excuses for us to stand by and do nothing.
And there are other ways in which the summit can help improve the security of the most vulnerable. The increasingly easy availability of arms is turning communities into battlefields across the world.
The international community is beginning to recognise the damage being done to lives and livelihoods by irresponsible arms transfers and their role in undermining human rights and sustainable development. World leaders in New York can take a significant step toward controlling the spread of arms. By giving a strong backing to arms controls, they can help to build momentum to achieve an arms trade treaty.
Also on the agenda is a reform of the UN response mechanism for humanitarian emergencies. Crises, such as that in Niger, show the need for early action which can prevent suffering and hunger. Unfortunately the UN, even where the warning has been sounded that a crisis is looming, has lacked the wherewithal to act early and decisively to prevent crises such as Niger happening. A proposal is on the table to replace the existing small UN emergencies revolving fund with a much larger fund of $1 billion, which would allow UN agencies to be pro-active in addressing crises at an early stage.
But now these vital negotiations look to be in serious trouble. With just two weeks left before the summit, many of the proposals are being contested by key states. Members of the non-aligned movement are opposing the responsibility to protect, while the United States, in particular, has proposed a raft of amendments which would significantly weaken the text. The promise of the summit in achieving action to tackle poverty and providing security now appears in real jeopardy.
The UN summit has an ambitious agenda before it. It can achieve much, but only with strong political will and a willingness to take bold action. Ireland must use its influence as an EU member state to push other states to do whatever they can to save the UN summit from failure.
It won't be easy and the fruits may not be seen for years to come.
But if this historic opportunity is missed - if action is not taken - then the price will be high. And it will be paid by the most vulnerable.
Brian Scott is executive director of Oxfam Ireland.