REPORT on the Millennium Development Goals – the midway point
11.6.2007 - (2007/2103(INI))
Committee on Development
Rapporteur: Glenys Kinnock
MOTION FOR A EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT RESOLUTION
on the Millennium Development Goals – the midway point
The European Parliament,
– having regard to the Millennium Declaration of 8 September 2000, which sets out the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) as criteria established jointly by the international community for the elimination of poverty,
– having regard to the successive Human Development Reports drawn up by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP),
– having regard to its resolution of 12 April 2005 on the role of the European Union in the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)[1],
– having regard to the Rome Declaration on Harmonisation, adopted on 25 February 2003 following the High Level Forum on Harmonisation, and the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness, adopted on 2 March 2005 following the High Level Forum on Implementation, Alignment and Results (hereinafter 'Paris Declaration'),
– having regard to the Joint Statement by the Council and the representatives of Governments of the Member States meeting within the Council, the European Parliament and the Commission on European Union Development Policy: 'The European Consensus '(hereinafter 'European Consensus for Development') signed on 20 December 2005[2],
– having regard to the Commission communication entitled 'EU Strategy for Africa: Towards a Euro-African pact to accelerate Africa’s development' (COM(2005)0489),
– having regard to its resolution of 17 November 2005 on a development strategy for Africa[3],
– having regard to the Regulation (EC) No 1905/2006 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 18 December 2006 establishing a financing instrument for development cooperation (hereinafter 'Development Cooperation Instrument' (DCI))[4],
– having regard to the annual reports by the Secretary-General of the UN on the implementation of the United Nations Millennium Declaration, the latest of which dates from July 2006,
– having regard to the report by the UN Millennium Project Task Force headed by professor Jeffrey Sachs "Investing in Development: a practical plan to achieve the Millennium Development Goals",
– having regard to the Report of the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) – Least Developed Countries 2002: Escaping the Poverty Trap,
– having regard to the UNICEF’s annual State of the World’s Children reports and the 1989 United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child,
– having regard to the European Commission Report on "Millennium Development Goals 2000–2004" (SEC(2004)1379),
– having regard to the annual Global Monitoring Report of the World Bank, the latest of which was published in April 2007,
– having regard to the Development Co-operation Report 2006 of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the latest version of which was published in March 2007[5],
– having regard to the final declarations and conclusions of international conferences, in particular the International Conference on Financing for Development (Monterrey, 2002), the 2005 World Summit (New York, 2005), the World Summit on Sustainable Development (Johannesburg, 2002), the Third United Nations Conference on the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) (Brussels, 2001), the Fourth World Trade Organization Ministerial Conference (Doha, 2001), the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) (Cairo, 1994), the UN General Assembly's 1999 special session to review progress towards meeting the ICPD goals ("Cairo + 5"), and the World Education Forum (Dakar, 2000),
– having regard to national reservations expressed by EU Member States in the final declarations and conclusions of the above-mentioned conferences,
– having regard to the commitments made by the EU at the Barcelona Summit in March 2002 in advance of the Monterrey Conference,
– having regard to the 2005 G8 Gleneagles commitments on aid volume, aid to Sub-Saharan Africa, and aid quality,
– having regard to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Working Group II to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change entitled 'Climate Change 2007: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability' (hereinafter 'Fourth Assessment Report on Climate Change),
– having regard to the final report of the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change,
– having regard to the conclusions of UNDP, UN Millennium Project and the World Bank in their 2006 report on Energy and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs),
– having regard to Articles 177-181 of the Treaty establishing the European Community,
– having regard to the Commission communication entitled EU Aid: 'Delivering more, better and faster' (COM(2006)0087),
– having regard to the communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament entitled 'Increasing the impact of EU aid: a common framework for drafting country strategy papers and joint multiannual programming' (COM(2006)0088),
– having regard to the Commission communication entitled 'Accelerating progress towards attaining the Millennium Development Goals – Financing for Development and Aid Effectiveness' (COM(2005)0133),
– having regard to the conclusions of the General Affairs and External Relations Council meeting of 10 and 11 April 2006 on financing for development and European aid effectiveness,
– having regard to the Commission communication entitled 'EU Code of Conduct on Division of Labour in Development Cooperation' (COM(2007)0072),
– having regard to its resolution of 6 April 2006 on aid effectiveness and corruption in developing countries[6],
– having regard to its resolution of 15 February 2007 on budget aid for developing countries[7],
– having regard to Rule 45 of its Rules of Procedure,
– having regard to the report of the Committee on Development (A6-0220/2007),
A. notes that the year 2007 marks the mid-point to meeting the MDGs in 2015 and therefore offers a unique opportunity to take stock of what remains to be done,
B. whereas in Sub-Saharan Africa many countries are not on track to meet any of the MDGs and also in many middle-income countries there are regions and ethnic groups made up of millions of people who are making unsatisfactory progress,
C. whereas the EU Council set the agenda for the G8 Summit in Gleneagles in July 2005 by agreeing in May 2005 that 0.7 % of Gross National Income (GNI) would be donated as Official Development Assistance (ODA) by 2015 and that this increase in aid is a fundamental prerequisite for the achievement of the MDGs,
D. whereas the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) allows for debt relief to be counted towards donor countries' ODA contributions even though this does not represent a transfer of any new resources from the donor to recipient countries,
E. whereas debt relief is one of the targets of MDG 8, which aims specifically to 'deal comprehensively with developing countries’ debt problems through national and international measures to make debt sustainable in the long term',
F. welcomes the fact that 24 countries have now benefited from debt cancellation, including 18 in Africa but that more much debt cancellation is still needed,
G. whereas annually EUR 6.9bn of ODA is required if the MDG on basic education is to be reached and whereas the current global ODA for basic education is around EUR 1.6bn – of which the EU contributes EUR 0.8bn,
H. whereas the estimated financing needed to meet the health MDGs is EUR 21bn per year and current financing only meets 36% of this need and whereas even with an anticipated increase in EU ODA by 2010 the available funds will only cover 41% of the required EUR 21 billion – leaving a financing gap of EUR 11.9 billion per year,
I. whereas despite significant progress towards universal primary education in recent years, there are still some 77 million primary school age children currently not in school, and the target of correcting the gender imbalance in primary schools by 2005 has been missed,
J. whereas the three health MDGs, those on infant mortality, on maternal mortality and on the fight against HIV/AIDS, TB and Malaria are among the least likely to be achieved by 2015,
K. whereas, according to the 2006 UN report on the Millennium Goals, despite progress in some countries the rate of HIV/Aids infection is continuing to increase, with the number of people infected rising from 36.2 million in 2003 to 38.6 million in 2005 (half of whom are women), and whereas the number of deaths attributable to Aids also increased in 2005, despite improved access to antiretroviral therapies,
L. regretting that at present over 90% of health research funding is spent on diseases that affect just ten per cent of the world’s population and whereas patent systems may have been working as an incentive for R&D in developed countries, this has not been the case for neglected diseases affecting the poor,
M. whereas, according to some estimates, there is a shortage of some two million teachers and over four million health workers in developing countries and in most cases, there are no strategies in place for training and recruitment,
N. alarmed that progress towards tackling malnutrition is so slow and that 27% of children are malnourished and 53% of deaths among children under five are associated with malnutrition,
O. whereas according to the UN Development Programme (UNDP), at least 19 countries have completed MDG needs assessments, and another 55 are in the process of drawing them up but that to date, not one low income country in Africa is implementing these strategies,
P. regrets that the baseline survey for monitoring the Paris declaration which was undertaken in 2006 found disappointing results relating to the implementation of pledges on harmonisation, alignment and ownership,
Q. recognising that the EC, the United Kingdom, Netherlands, Sweden, Ireland, Denmark and Germany are increasing the proportion of aid spent through General Budget Support,
R. whereas the quality of development aid is as important as the quantity, taking into account the absorption capacity of the countries
S. whereas progress towards reaching the MDGs requires radical action to address the structural causes of poverty, including the need for a fair and equitable rules-based trade systems designed to promote trade and to correct the imbalances in global trade, especially where Africa is concerned,
T. whereas the Parliament in its resolution of 6 July 2006 on Fair Trade and Development[8] recognised the role of Fair Trade in improving the livelihoods of small farmers and producers in the developing world, providing as it does a sustainable model of production with guaranteed returns for the producer,
U. whereas increased support to the private sector, in particular to small and medium – sized enterprises, is a driving force for the development and creation of new markets, as well as for the creation of jobs,
V. whereas the achievement of the MDGs is an EU priority and whereas the crucial role of local authorities in the implementation of these goals has been recognised by the United Nations,
W. whereas an estimated two billion people in the world lack access to modern energy carriers and whereas no country has been able to substantially reduce poverty without significantly increasing the use of energy;
X. whereas the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change and the Fourth Assessment Report on Climate Change demonstrated unequivocally that climate change has most impact on developing countries that for many of the world's most vulnerable communities, climate change is already a reality,
Y. whereas the preliminary estimates of the World Bank indicate that USD 10–40 billion will be required annually in order to "climate proof" development in the poorest countries; and whereas contributions to adaptation funds within the climate convention do not amount to more than USD 150–300 million per year,
Z. whereas conflict affected fragile states account for 9% of the population of developing countries, but that 27% of the extreme poor, nearly one third of all child deaths and 29% of 12 year olds who did not complete primary school in 2005 are in fragile states,
AA. asserts that good governance and improved institutional capacity are vital to ensuring the delivery of basic social services and infrastructure and security to citizens,
BB. recognising that the achievement of the MDGs would not only mean a giant step in reducing global poverty and suffering, but would also serve to demonstrate the international system's ability to set and follow through on practical targets for global partnership,
SCALING UP AID
1. Underlines that the overarching aim of development cooperation is and must be the fight against poverty; stresses, however, that this fight is not limited to material growth and therefore, democracy-building and the promotion of basic human rights, rule of law and the principles of justice, equity, transparency and accountability must always be central themes of any such cooperation;
2. Recalls the commitment made by G8 countries at Gleneagles in 2005 to double aid to Sub-Saharan Africa by 2010 and expresses disappointment that, according to the OECD, ODA excluding debt relief to Sub-Saharan Africa 'was static in 2006';
3. Stresses that in order to meet their financial commitments to Africa, the G8 donors will each have to provide an additional EUR 15bn to Africa by 2010, over and above their 2004 levels, but that they are so far off track;
4. Welcomes the action taken by many EU countries in writing off the debt of developing countries; expresses concern, nevertheless, that such debt write-offs have artificially boosted EU aid figures by nearly 30% in 2006, meaning that the Member States spent 0.31% of GNI on actual aid last year, missing the collective intermediary objective of 0.33%;
5. Calls on the EU and the G8 to disaggregate debt cancellation and relief from aid figures in line with the 2002 Monterrey Consensus and the Council Conclusions of April 2006;
6. Regrets that at the mid-point in the implementation period for the MDGs, ODA from the EU-15 is decreasing as a share of GNI from 0.44% ODA/GNI in 2005 to 0.43% ODA/GNI in 2006;
7. Welcomes the fact that aid provided by the Commission rose by 5.7% to €7.5 billion in 2006, reflecting improved disbursement capacity from the higher level of commitments made in recent years;
8. Commends those Member States that have reached or exceeded the 0.7% ODA/GNI target and those that are increasing their actual aid levels, but regrets that some EU-15 countries have missed the interim 0.33% target by a large margin in 2006;
9. Notes that as a large G8 country, Italy missed the 0.33% target by wide margin, with its aid in 2006 amounting to only 0.2% of its national income, after a 30% drop in real aid levels;
10. Notes that Portugal, which is due to host the EU-Africa Summit during its Presidency, achieved only 0.21% ODA/GNI in 2006;
11. Notes that the worst inflators of aid are Austria (57%), France (52%), Italy (44%), Germany (53%) and the UK (28%), and further notes that Germany, which holds the Presidencies of both the EU and G8, would not have reached the target of 0.33% ODA/GNI without inflating its aid;
12. Calls on all Member States that are off-track to honour the promises made in Barcelona, Gleneagles and Monterrey and to urgently commit themselves to a scaling up of real aid in 2007 and calls on the Commission to support those Member States in planning carefully for the financial and organisational aspects for forthcoming aid increases to ensure the EU interim 2010 target of 0.56% GNI is met;
13. Argues that the budget review, starting in 2008, should take into account the EU's increasingly important role in the world and enable development expenditure to increase, in this context, the EU could decide to implement new forms of funding MDGs such as through the European Investment Bank (EIB);
14. Calls on the Commission to plan for the clear likelihood that the 10th EDF will not be ratified by all 27 Member States before 2010 and should therefore urgently ensure that funds are available during the transitional period (2008–2010);
15. Urges the Commission to continue to explore innovative sources of finance as alternative ways of securing funding for development programmes but stresses that this should be in addition to the commitment to reaching 0.7% of GNI for ODA;
16. Urges EU Member States to undertake regular assessments of progress towards ODA targets and welcomes the Commission proposal that EU Member States put national timetables in place to ensure that they are on track towards reaching agreed country ODA targets by 2010/2015 and to improve the long-term predictability of their aid flows;
17. Urges the EU and the G8 to recognise the growing importance of new donors, and in particular China, and to engage these new donors in a dialogue on approaches and standards for external assistance, including the importance of applying internationally agreed norms and standards in aid implementation;
18. Calls on G8 countries to delink all aid from their national economic interests, noting that as a group, the G8 currently tie 29% of their aid to developing countries, as opposed to the total donor average of 24%;
DEBT RELIEF
19. Underlines that possibly as many as 60 countries need all of their debts to be cancelled if they are to have any chance of achieving the MDGs and that there are yet more countries that require further debt relief, including a number of countries with “odious debts”, such as those contracted by South Africa’s former apartheid regime;
20. Welcomes the World Bank finding that countries receiving debt relief under Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative (HIPC) have, between 1999 and 2005, more than doubled their expenditure on poverty reduction plans;
21. Calls on countries to meet their obligations to use funds released by debt relief and cancellation transparently and accountably and further argues that debt relief should only be withheld if there is a broad consensus in the parliament and among civil society organisations that standards of transparency and accountability are not being met;
22. Stresses that long-term debt sustainability will depend upon responsible lending policies, the provision of appropriate financing, the maintenance of sound economic policies, strengthened debt management and sound public and parliamentary accountability of loan contraction, as well as export performance and particularly export diversification;
23. Calls on those Member States which are attaching harmful structural conditions to debt relief, such as privatisations, sectoral restructurings, trade and financial liberalisation and links to macroeconomic targets of the International monetary Fund (IMF), to end this practice;
24. Calls on all donors and creditors to make all information relating to loans and debt write offs easily available and accessible in partner countries and to insist on the same transparency for commercial creditors;
25. Calls on Member States to act on the 'supply side' of corruption by investigating, prosecuting and blacklisting bribe givers and to protect poor countries from 'Vulture Funds';
26. Calls on the World Bank to make more concessional financing available to countries striving to achieve the MDGs;
FINANCING HUMAN AND SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT
27. Urges the EU to increase its ODA commitments to education to fill the €5.3 billion financing gap and given that the major challenge facing the Education For All – Fast Track Initiative (FTI) is lack of external finance, the Commission is to be commended for initiating efforts to increase donor pledges but regrets that while commitments made at the Donor Conference held in Brussels on May 2nd 2007 should enable 1 million more children able to go to school, but that still leaves another 76 million without an education;
28. Calls on the EU to increase its proportion of global ODA for health from the current 6.6%, in order to help bridge the financing gap of €11.9bn per year of the total estimated €21bn per year needed to fulfil global health spending needs and calls for continuing and increased, predictable support for the Global Fund to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria;
29. Calls on the African Union (AU) to continue its support for the Abuja Declaration of 2001 which confirms that countries should allocate at least 15% of their national budgets for healthcare but regrets that only two African States have met this promise;
30. Stresses that developing-country governments have made real progress in the last decade on increasing investment in health and education but that in some cases promises have not been fulfilled and calls on these governments to set a timetable for reaching the target of investing at least 20% of government budgets in education and the target of investing 15% of government budgets to health;
31. Calls on the Court of Auditors to implement in 2008 an audit of the commitment in the DCI that by 2009, 20% of all EC ODA is allocated to basic health and to basic and secondary education;
PRIORITIES IN HUMAN AND SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT
32. Emphasises that it is a priority to ensure that 'hard to reach' children – those from conflict affected fragile states, those with disabilities, from remote regions, chronically poor families or those excluded on the grounds of ethnicity – can access their right to basic education;
33. Calls on the EU to give urgent attention to education in conflict affected-fragile states, which currently receive less than a fifth of global education aid despite being home to more than half the world's children missing out on education, and in particular calls on the Humanitarian Aid Department of the Commission (ECHO) to follow through on clear guidelines for ECHO support to education in emergency responses;
34. Calls on the EU to assist countries in building national capacity to track learning outcomes in order to ensure that expanded access to education also delivers a quality education;
35. Deplores the fact that virtually no country in Africa is on track to achieve the MDGs for maternal and child health;
36. Notes that progress on child mortality lags behind other MDGs despite the availability of simple, low cost interventions that could prevent millions of deaths each year and stresses that oral rehydration therapy, insecticide treated bednets, breastfeeding, and common antibiotics for respiratory diseases could prevent an estimated 63% of child deaths;
37. Believes that health care infrastructure deserves stable and long term financial support from national budgets and international assistance in order to deliver on the health-related MDGs, such as reducing infant mortality by increasing immunization coverage, reducing maternal mortality by increasing access to skilled professionals, supporting research and development of and access to new diagnostics and therapies, providing safe drinking water and sanitation, and scaling up significantly towards the goal of universal access to prevention, treatment, care and support of HIV/AIDS, Malaria, TB and other diseases by 2010, including for marginalized populations and those most vulnerable to infectious diseases;
38. Calls on the international donor community to assist developing countries in developing and implementing comprehensive health programmes of action, tackling issues such as the need to secure sustainable financing for health infrastructure and salaries, increase investment in training and avoid excessive “brain drain” through the migration of high-skilled health workers;
39. Welcomes the Johannesburg Declaration of the 3rd Ordinary Session of AU Conference of Ministers of Health of 9-13 April 2007 on Strengthening of Health Systems for Equity and Development as an important initiative towards achieving the Health MDGs; calls on the EU to support the AU member states in implementing the programmes based on this declaration;
40. Urges the EU to continue to be at the vanguard of efforts to support sexual and reproductive health rights by maintaining levels of funding for the implementation of the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) Programme of Action and regrets that while Sub-Saharan Africa has the highest rates of maternal mortality, it also has the lowest rate of contraceptive use in the world (19%) and 30% of all maternal deaths on the continent are caused by unsafe abortions;
41. Points out that the UN plans to adopt a new target on MDG 5 on Universal Access to Sexual and Reproductive Health and therefore notes the Maputo Plan of Action for the Operationalisation of the Continental Policy Framework for Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights 2007–2010 adopted by the Special Session of AU Conference of Ministers of Health of 18-22 September 2006 (Maputo Plan of Action);
42. Stresses the urgent need to tackle gender-based violence in all forms because violence impacts of girls access to education and health and is also one of the main drivers of the HIV pandemic and therefore a key barrier to achieving greater gender equality in developing countries;
43. Calls on the Commission to step up its commitment to combating HIV/Aids in developing countries and to ensure that those hardest hit have ever-better access, at affordable prices, to prevention resources and policies, antiretroviral treatments and healthcare services (infrastructure, personnel and medicines) capable of meeting the growing demand;
44. Notes that all the MDGs are critically dependent on stemming the AIDS epidemic and asks the Commission to accord the highest priority to addressing this global pandemic by supporting an intensified and comprehensive response; points out that the response should ensure universal access to existing prevention and treatment as well as adequate investments in development of and universal access to a wide range of prevention technologies including microbicides and vaccines; and calls on the EU to promote expanded industry participation, a more coordinated scientific effort, and policies and programmes that accelerate the testing of novel vaccines and microbicides;
45. Calls on the EU to increase funding to ensure that progress in basic science and biomedicine results in new and affordable drugs, vaccines, and diagnostics for neglected diseases; to support the development phases of R&D; and to secure the use of new products by neglected populations;
46. Calls on the EU to support the full implementation of the Doha Declaration on the TRIPS Agreement and Public Health of the WTO Ministerial Conference of 9-14 November 2001, and to ensure that medicines are affordable for those for those developing countries that do take measures in compliance with the Declaration and further calls on the EU to provide technical assistance to developing countries for the implementation of pro public health measures in patent law;
47. Stresses the need for a comprehensive review of those systems in place that are failing to solve the access to medicines problem, this includes submitting recommendations to the WTO for amendment to its rules governing the exportation of medicines under compulsory license, known as the August 30th decision;
48. Points out that according to some estimates, two million teachers and over 4 million health workers need to be recruited to make health and education for all a reality and €10bn must be invested every year in training and salaries for quality teachers and health workers;
49. Calls on poor country governments to set salaries of existing health workers and teachers at dignified levels in collaboration with their trade unions;
50. Calls on poor country governments to ensure parliamentary and citizen representation and oversight in monitoring public services and facilitate the participation of civil society and local authorities in local and national planning and budget processes, including agreements and contracts signed with donors;
51. Stresses that in some countries rates of malnutrition are increasing and that for the whole of Africa, an estimated 3.7 million more children will be malnourished in 2015 than today and calls on the EU to review and evaluate whether their indirect investments deal effectively with malnutrition;
52. Calls on EU donors to immediately start reporting using internationally agreed indicators on nutrition to report progress on food security, safety nets and social protection, governance, water, sanitation and health;
AID QUALITY AND POVERTY FOCUSED DEVELOPMENT COOPERATION
53. Insists that Commission and Member States use the Code of Conduct on Donor Coordination to ensure that spending and programmes on health and education are better coordinated and to ensure an improved focus on neglected aid orphan countries, including countries in crisis and fragile states;
54. Urges all Member States to fully implement the agreed Paris Declaration to improve aid effectiveness and stresses that more effort needs to be made by the EU in relation to mutual accountability, ownership of partner countries and reform of technical assistance because DAC Member States scored badly on these three areas in the recent OECD baseline survey on implementing the Paris Declaration;
55. Calls on the EU to support partners to build their in country capacity to lead a coherent development management process, as this remains central to ensuring countries rightful ownership and leadership of their own development process;
56. Believes that micro-financing is one of the most essential instruments in the fight against poverty as it empowers the poor themselves to actively participate in this fight;
57. Believes that gender specific priorities and children's rights need to be re-focused in Community development policy as basic rights and as part of the governance criteria applied under the Cotonou Agreement[9] and elsewhere;
58. Welcomes the EC Partnership on Gender for Development and Peace that has recently been launched, with the aim of ensuring that gender is not sidelined in the implementation and review of the Paris Declaration;
59. Believes that Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PSRPs) and Country Strategy Papers (CSPs) are potentially important tools for achieving the MDGs, but that they should be drafted, implemented, monitored and evaluated in consultation with parliaments in ACP countries and Member States, the Parliament, civil society and local authorities and should focus on meeting MDG objectives;
60. Expresses concern about the lack of flexibility in EC programming which defines limited priorities at the start of a programming cycle and then does not allow for new issues to be supported, even if requested directly by partner governments;
61. Stresses that the long-term goal of development cooperation must be to create the conditions for sustainable economic, social and environmental development; underlines, in this context, the need to promote public-private growth initiative partnerships, including support measures to small and medium-sized enterprises, to raise productivity and employment;
62. Stresses the high potential of foreign direct investment to development, sustained economic growth, the transfer of know-how, entrepreneurship and technology and job creation; underlines, in this context, the importance of a transparent, predictable and favourable investment climate, minimizing red tape for business, respecting property rights, promoting competition and striving for sound macroeconomic policies;
63. Calls on donors and recipients to support improved data for MDG implementation and monitoring;
64. Calls on the Commission to ensure that when funds are spent on infrastructure, poverty reduction remains the key focus of all projects;
65. Acknowledges that current EU Funds and Facilities such as the Infrastructure Facility, the Water Facility and the Energy Facility address important issues, but questions whether either individually or collectively they add up to significant MDG focussed support;
66. Calls on the EU to strengthen its partnerships with developing countries in a way that encourages mutual accountability and reciprocal obligations by establishing predictable benchmarks and deadlines for ODA increases, in order to facilitate recipient countries' planning for increases in public investments;
67. Stresses that all means must be used to attain the MDGs and that this necessitates the broadest possible partnerships of stakeholders, especially with developing country national parliaments and civil society and local authorities and private partners;
68. Trusts that agreement will be reached during the drafting of the Joint Africa-EU Strategy on the fundamental importance of reaching the MDG targets by 2015;
GENERAL BUDGET SUPPORT
69. Insists that the EU and partner governments ensure that budget support always takes the form of sector specific budget aid that earmarks money for a specific sector in which the funding should be spent, use poverty-related targets that directly measure the outcome of policies instead of budgetary input and output, put in place mechanisms and monitoring tools to ensure that an adequate proportion of General Budget Support aid is supporting basic needs, particularly health and education, stresses that this must be accompanied by support for capacity building, and stresses that a percentage of 0.5 % of the granted budget support should be reserved exclusively for civil society watchdogs;
70. Calls on the EU to support coherent MDG management of General Budget Support across different parts of the executive and legislatures and to provide support for parliamentary civil society and local authorities scrutiny of budget support to ensure a strong and clear link between budget support aid and the achievement of the MDGs;
71. Calls for national parliament and civil society participation in effective budgetary monitoring in the form of public expenditure tracking surveys (PETS) which make a detailed comparison between ‘income’ and ‘outcome’ on the basis of the criteria of the OECD DAC;
72. Calls on the EU to increase the proportion of aid spent through direct budget support to those countries that have given proof of good governance, respect for human rights and the principles of democracy;
73. Stresses that budget support in its common form is essentially another short term agreement between donors and governments, with few agreements exceeding three years and calls on donors to increase the term of commitment they make, possibly along the lines proposed by the EC for ‘MDG Contracts’ involving six year commitments and clear understandings and clarity on when and how such support would be suspended;
74. Calls on countries to focus on the implications of General Budget Support for women’s equality and gender relations because overall increases in financing do not necessarily overcome the unequal access and status of marginalised groups including women and people with disabilities;
GOVERNANCE
75. Recalls that the Cotonou Agreement has a framework for dialogue between EU and ACP states on governance issues and calls on the EU to strengthen this framework instead of adding new initiatives, strategies and policies;
76. Regrets that the EC governance instrument which is presented as an incentive tranche for budget support reduces the MDGs to only one of twenty three indicators, with other indicators such as trade liberalisation, counter terrorism and migration which are irrelevant to the implementation of the MDGs and believes that the governance instrument should be focused on the commitment of the partner country to implement the MDGs;
77. Urges the EC to grasp the opportunity presented by the 2008 Review of the Governance Profile approach to listen to the views of European and African parliaments and civil society organisations, as well as Member States and African governments, and adapt its governance approach accordingly;
PEACE AND SECURITY
78. Recalls that peace and security is vital to achieving the MDGs, and therefore urges the EU to ensure its development policies have a positive impact on peacebuilding;
79. Recalls the commitment to mainstream conflict-sensitivity in all EU policies and instruments, as advocated in the 2001 Goteborg Programme for the Prevention of Violent Conflicts, and calls on the EU to implement the latest adopted tools to prevent conflict such as the EU Small Arms and Light Weapons Strategy, the EU Policy Framework for Security Sector Reform and the Joint EU Concept on Disarmament, Demobilisation and Re-integration (DDR);
80. Welcomes the fact that an Arms Trade Treaty now has the support of 80% of the world's governments, and urges the EU to play its part in ensuring that there can be an international, legally binding treaty;
TRADE
81. Calls on the EU to adopt a coherent policy between its trade, fisheries, development cooperation and common agricultural policies to avoid direct or indirect negative impacts on the economy of developing countries;
82. Stresses that opening up trade can be one of the most effective drivers of economic growth, but that it needs to be complemented by redistributive and social domestic policies in order for poverty to be reduced;
83. Stresses the promise of the Doha Development Round and the need for fair and equitable international rules-based trade systems designed to correct the trading imbalances in global trade, especially where Africa is concerned, calls on the EU to make a maximum effort to end the stalemate in the WTO negotiations;
84. Notes that according to the Chair of the deadlocked Doha Round, in order to facilitate a development friendly agreement, the EU must envisage cutting its trade distorting agricultural export subsidies by an estimated 70% and that agreement on subsidy and tariff cuts must be reached in order that the negotiations are concluded by the end of 2007;
85. Believes that Fair Trade is an important tool in building sustainable trade with fair returns for producers in the developing world; calls on the Commission to respond to the Parliament's resolution on Fair Trade and Development with a Recommendation to support Fair Trade as outlined in paragraph 1 and 2 of the resolution;
86. Calls on the Commission to ensure that its commercial agreements contribute to, instead of hampering, the achievement of the MDGs; in particular, it should ensure that Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) constitute instruments for ACP development and poverty eradication;
87. Believes that intellectual property provisions should be excluded from EPAs and Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) negotiations notably TRIPs-plus provisions which go beyond the TRIPs Agreement, such as data exclusivity and limitations of the grounds of Compulsory Licenses;
88. Believes that all ACP countries must have a clear right to choose whether to extend the negotiations beyond trade in goods, calls on the Commission to ensure that intellectual property rights and the Singapore issues (competition policy, public procurement and investment) are taken of the negotiating table if ACP countries do not wish to negotiate these issues;
89. Takes note of recent studies by UNCTAD and others that show that extensive trade liberalisation in LDCs had little effect on sustained and substantial poverty reduction objectives and has contributed to a decline in the terms of trade of developing countries, in particular of African countries, and calls on the EU to start a sustained, sincere campaign to genuinely increase the export capacity of these LDCs by promoting technical assistance to further physiosanitary standards, property law, business skills and value addition programmes;
90. Calls on the Commission to adjust its cooperation and trade policies as far as possible in order to help governments of developing countries to maintain and develop public services, particularly those guaranteeing access for the population as whole to drinking water, health services, education and transport;
91. Urges that full account should be taken of the fact that ACP countries are often heavily dependent on primary commodities, which are particularly vulnerable to price fluctuations and tariff escalation, and stresses the importance of diversification, the development of processing industries and SMEs in those countries;
92. Stresses the importance of capacity building for trade and the need for additional resources from the EU to enhance ACP countries' ability to identify needs and strategies, to negotiate and to support regional integration, for diversification and preparation for liberalisation by enhancing production, supply and trading capacity and offsetting adjustment costs as well as to increase their ability to attract investment;
93. Calls on the Commission to increase its trade related assistance to support capacity building which is essential if the poorest countries are to be able to tackle the increased competition resulting from market liberalisation;
94. Insists that resources to cover aid for trade must be additional to those provided under the 10th EDF in line with ACP demands that EPA adjustment be financed separately from and in addition to the 10th EDF;
CLIMATE CHANGE
95. Urges the EU to continue to play a leading role in promoting cleaner, more efficient approaches to sustainable and low carbon development;
96. Points out that poor communities in developing countries have contributed the least to climate change but are likely to suffer the effects most severely; calls on the EU to make significant funding available to enable developing countries to adapt to sea level rises and increased strength and frequency of extreme weather events like droughts, heavy storms, flooding, etc., as well as to ensuing health, food production and water stresses, which would put development at risk and may lead to large-scale migration and security threats;
97. Calls on the EU to make significant funding available to enable poor countries to adapt to climate change and stresses that this money cannot simply be channelled from existing aid budgets and that payments should be additional and compensatory and further believes that a significant proportion of the revenue raised by auctioning allocations under the European Trading Scheme and taxing carbon should be used to fund clean development in developing countries;
98. Stresses that adaptation must not be dealt with only as a humanitarian issue or as a priority only within the context of the climate convention; emphasizes that risk reduction and "climate proofing" measures must be integrated into the overarching development agenda, including in PRSPs and CSPs;
99. Calls on the EU to introduce emergency measures to allow poor countries to manufacture patented clean development technology in order to help address energy poverty and help avoid the problem of rapidly rising emissions in poor countries as they grow;
100. Stresses that although energy is not specifically addressed in the Millennium Declaration, the provision of modern energy services to the poor is a crucial prerequisite to meet the MDGs; points out that the preconditions for renewable energy technologies are excellent in many developing countries, providing an effective way of meeting soaring oil costs and meeting energy needs while avoiding further harmful climate impact; regrets that insufficient financial resources have been allocated by the EU for addressing the energy poverty challenge; emphasizes for this purpose the need for increased aid flows, as well as enhanced support for private investments in renewable energy technologies;
POST-MDG AGENDA
101. Stresses that if the MDGs are achieved, the proportion of people in poverty will be halved within a decade, a huge achievement but one that will nevertheless leave hundreds of millions of poorest and most vulnerable people trapped in chronic poverty;
102. Calls on the EU to set a date for agreement on a Poverty Elimination Strategy post 2015;
103. Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council, the Commission, the governments and parliaments of the Member States and the accession countries, the Inter-Parliamentary Union, the United Nations and the Development Assistance Committee of the OECD;
- [1] OJ C 33 E, 9.2.2006, p. 311.
- [2] OJ C 46, 24.2.2006, p. 1.
- [3] Texts Adopted of that date, P6_TA(2005)0445.
- [4] OL L 378, 27.12.2006, p. 41.
- [5] published March 2007, ISBN Number 9789264031050.
- [6] Texts Adopted of that date, P6_TA(2006)0141.
- [7] Texts Adopted of that date, P6_TA(2007)0043.
- [8] Texts Adopted, P6_TA(2006)0320.
- [9] Partnership Agreement between the members of the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Group of States, of the one part, and the Community and its Member States, of the other part, signed in Cotonou on 23 June 2000 (OJ L 317, 15.12.2000, p. 3), as amended by the Agreement amending the Partnership Agreement, signed in Luxembourg on 25 June 2005 (OJ L 209, 11.8.2005, p. 27)
EXPLANATORY STATEMENT
INTRODUCTION
The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are time-bound, measurable targets for global partnership. Yet whereas many parts of the world have made significant progress towards meeting the MDGs, Sub-Saharan Africa remains seriously off track and is the poorest region in the world.
AID
In 2005 the EU-15 pledged to reach 0.7% of Gross National Income (GNI) as Official Development Assistance (ODA) by 2015, with an interim target of 0.56% by 2010. At least half of the planned increase from €26.5bn to €50bn is to go to Africa. The European Commission (EC) has already, in its assessment of the EU Strategy for Africa, stated that these targets will be met.
We should note however, that ODA was exceptionally high in 2005 due to large Paris Club debt relief operations. Bilateral aid to Sub-Saharan Africa rose by 23% in real terms to €21bn in 2006, however, if we exclude debt relief to Nigeria, bilateral aid to the region rose by only 2%. The counting conventions used by the OECD do actually allow donors to add in the nominal value of debt write off as aid but the reality is that debt relief does not represent a transfer of any new resources for development. In line with the Monterrey Consensus, debt relief should be taken out of all figures intended to give a clear picture of levels of actual aid to Africa.
Clearly the MDGs will not be reached unless the poorest developing countries receive increased and improved aid to complement their own domestic resource mobilisation. The UN, AU, G8 and EU must be galvanised to deal with the current estimates which show that donors should be budgeting for the provision of increases of roughly €3.7bn a year so that the objective of reaching the level of €18.7bn in real resources for Africa can be achieved by 2010.
We also need to see a greater commitment to meeting the Paris Declaration Agreement on Aid Effectiveness, which would guarantee essential, long-term predictable funding.
Another factor that needs to be understood is that there are an increasing number of non-DAC donors, including Russia, China and non-DAC EU Member States. Their involvement should be taken into account, particularly the influence of some on governance, economic policy and transparency.
MORE RESOURCES FOR DEVELOPMENT
Development spending must be adequately taken into account when the fundamental review of EC expenditure takes place, starting in 2008.
Innovative sources of finance should also be explored as alternative sources of funding in addition to ODA. International Finance Facility for Immunisation bonds have raised €0.75bn for immunisation through the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation. The French air ticket levy is expected to raise €187mn a year. Eight African and four developed countries have taken initial steps to introduce an aviation levy.
With both the EU Budget and EDF 10 now set until 2013 and showing only marginal increases, a rise in funding will probably have to be channelled through Member States' bilateral aid packages, which implies a proportional reduction in the amount of EU aid relative to the aid supplied to individual EU Member States. Member States should develop strategies that will enable them to channel more money through the Commission. One suggestion has been the creation of a special MDG fund focused on poverty-reducing activities in all poor countries and governed in a transparent and accountable way.
DEBT RELIEF
The promise to deliver 100% debt relief to HIPC countries at Gleneagles has been met. Sierra Leone was the seventeenth country to reach the HIPC completion point at the end of 2006. Eight countries are currently at decision point and a further eight are at pre-decision point. Debt relief has enabled €420mn to be redirected to social spending in Africa, such as the abolition of school fees in a number of countries.
TRADE
The AU has called upon the international community to establish 'fair and equitable trading systems and to facilitate access to their markets'. With the EU negotiating the Doha Round as a single trading bloc, it is clearly an area where Europe has the greatest capacity to affect change.
At the international level and at the level of the EPA negotiations, conditions for market access, technical barriers to trade and restrictive Rules of Origin need to be addressed, as do serious capacity constraints.
CLIMATE CHANGE
The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has stressed that while the worlds poorest countries have contributed the least the problem of climate change, they are the worst hit by the phenomenon.
The EU has already made a commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 20% by the year 2020 and by 30% if there is similar support from other industrialized nations. Donors have also increased their funding to environmental programmes between 2000 and 2005 but this needs to be scaled up to enable poor, vulnerable countries to adapt to sea level rises, deprivation, increased drought and more extreme weather. The EU should also work with developing countries to develop mitigation efforts, by supporting clean, energy-saving and efficient technologies transfer and carbon-proofing investments.
ACCESS TO EDUCATION
Progress towards meeting the universal education MDG is encouraging according the World Bank, but we still need 50 million African children to be enrolled in school if we are to hit the target by 2010. The first MDG target on gender equality- closing the educational gender gap - was set for 2006 and has already been missed.
Both UNESCO and the World Bank Fast Track Initiative (FTI) note that strategies must ensure that 'hard to reach' children can access their right to basic education - this includes children with disabilities, or from remote regions, chronically poor families or those excluded on the grounds of ethnicity.
There needs to be improvement in the quality of education and UNESCO has warned that the number of primary teachers in sub-Saharan Africa will need to grow from 2.4 million to 4 million by 2015 to ensure universal primary education of quality. Internationally supported efforts are also needed to help countries build national capacity to track and monitor learning outcomes.
International partners must now work towards closing the current global financing gap which stands at around €5.3bn per year. We should congratulate the EC in bringing EU donors together in May 2007 in order that pledges for basic education can be made.
ACCESS TO BASIC HEALTHCARE AND COMBATTING DISEASE
The provision of treatment for specific diseases is increasing but health systems are so weak that progress on efforts to reduce childhood disease and child, infant and maternal mortality is desperately slow. Millions of children are dying despite the availability of simple, low cost, preventative interventions. Equally, millions of women are dying in childbirth or from pregnancy-related causes. In Africa, the risk of maternal mortality is a shocking 1 in 6.
The migration of African health professionals adds to these problems. Oxfam calculates that in 12 countries in Sub Saharan Africa, only 10 per cent of the population is being covered by health workers.
Total health spending increased from 4.1% to 5.6% of GDP between 1990 and 2002, but in some countries domestic spending stagnated or even reversed. There remains a large shortfall relative to financing needs to reach the health MDGs, conservatively estimated by the World Bank at between €18.7 billion and € 37.5 billion annually. Again the Global Fund needs the promise of substantial, predictable long term funding.
At present, over 90% of health research resources are spent on diseases that affect just ten per cent of the world’s population. Patent systems may have been working as an incentive for R&D in developed countries but this has not been the cases for neglected diseases affecting the poor.
At Abuja in 2000-2001, African governments pledged to spend at least 15% of their budgets on healthcare targets. Since then only a few African countries have addressed health systems in their central development frameworks and only two, Botswana and The Gambia have met the Abuja Commitments.
A RIGHTS BASED APPROACH TO ACHIEVING THE MDGS
The 2006 World Development Report on equity and development refers to gender inequality as the 'archetypal inequality trap'. This inequality is reflected in the poorer performance by women and girls across many of the MDGs. Entrenched discrimination against women continues to provide a major impediment to the kind of progress which will make the realisation of the MDGs possible.
The African Union has signed a Charter on the Rights of Women in Africa. The EU has committed itself to promoting gender equality in all their actions, including in their development cooperation. The EU has also signed the Beijing Declaration and all Member States are party to the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW).
Saving women's lives means ensuring that they have universal to access to sexual reproductive health care and family planning as well as pre and post-natal care. The EU must honour the commitments made at the International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo and should continue to lead the way on sexual and reproductive health rights by maintaining levels of funding for the full range of SRHR services.
Just as gender rights are a cross cutting issue, so are the rights of children and people with disabilities and should be taken into account in all policies and programmes.
PEACE AND SECURITY
Many countries are not making progress on meeting the MDGs and they are generally those that are in crisis or post-conflict. Improving the coordination of security, stabilisation efforts, humanitarian policies and operations with long-term development efforts is essential as is the need for mechanisms to prevent conflict.
The EU needs to support peace building but also to take urgent action on small arms, including support for the International Arms Trade Treaty.
GOVERNANCE
The AU adopted a Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance at its Summit in January 2007 and has in place an African Peer Review Mechanism. There is still more which has to be done but Ghana and Rwanda for instance, have reacted to their review and are taking action There needs to be support for civil and parliamentary participation as well as for the political involvement of women. Corruption and bribery remain a concern and we should note that the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative represents a major step forward.
The EU will support a number of governance programmes under the EU-Africa Strategy and the Cotonou Partnership agreement makes governance a shared responsibility.
BUDGET SUPPORT
While budget aid to ACP countries counted for almost one quarter of EC aid in recent years, the Commission intends to increase this share to more than 50% under the 10th EDF. It is therefore important that mechanisms and monitoring tools are in place to ensure that funds going to the general budget directly support efforts to meet the MDGs.
Developing countries need support to build their own capacity to produce a coherent development management process. A key issue, particularly in Africa, is related to absorption capacity - it is important to acknowledge the centrality of capacity to the achievement of the MDGs.
Donors should also fund the building of parliamentary capacity to scrutinise their government's budgets and policies. There also needs to be increased oversight by the JPA, as its' work covers the legally binding and contractual relationship between parliamentarians from the European Parliament and from the ACP.
NATIONAL STRATEGIES DESIGNED TO MEET THE MDGS
According to the UNDP, at least 19 countries have completed MDG needs assessments, and another 55 are in the process of drawing them up. But, to date, not one low income country in Africa has yet received the promised support from the international community to implement these strategies.
The EU, UN and Financial Institutions must support governments in aligning their existing development strategies, such as the PRSPs, with the MDGs through broad based participatory processes and must meet commitments to support scaling up as part of national development strategies.
THE POVERTY FOCUS OF EC DEVELOPMENT COOPERATION
The European Consensus on Development, Article 19 of the Cotonou Agreement and the DCI all place poverty reduction and eradication as the primary objective of EC cooperation with developing countries. It is of some concern to the European Parliament that in 2005, EC aid to transport and other infrastructure projects amounted to around €817mn, while spending on education and health stood at €185mn and €239mn respectively - although analysis of actual spending on these sectors in the context of budget support is difficult. It is important that EC support to the transport sector should have a clear and explicit link to poverty reduction.
There are concerns that, while the criterion for EC support includes human rights and democracy, there are also elements that bring European economic and geopolitical interests into the programming process. National and regional development policies must be democratically set by populations themselves and their respective governments should be accountable to them through democratic institutions and not by conditionality geared to donors own strategic interests.
The European Parliament wants to see a more flexible and adaptable EDF, especially in light of the fact that the MDGs themselves are not immutable.
DONOR COORDINATION
The EU Code of Conduct on The Division of Labour in Development Cooperation is timely and has the potential to improve coordination between the Commission and Member States. It remains uncertain, however, how successful a voluntary code can actually be.
THE POST-MDG AGENDA
Even if the MDG obligations are met there will still be millions of chronically poor people who will not have been reached. A global strategy for poverty eradication takes time to evolve so, by 2010, the EU should have a strategy in place geared to tackling that problem.
CONCLUSION
We have seen a groundbreaking 100% cancellation of multilateral debts but on aid we need to see a change of gear because when we strip out debt, Europe's aid is not growing enough to meet the Gleneagles pledges. On trade progress is disappointing, especially since changes in trade rules would benefit the poor more than a quintupling of aid.
In 2005 thousands of our citizens marched under the banner of Make Poverty History. and Oxfam has declared that we are already seeing 'a real improvement in the lives of some of the world's poorest people'. It is time to acknowledge that there has been social and political change and a growing understanding that we should not be calling for charity but rather calling for justice.
PROCEDURE
Title |
The Millennium Development Goals – the midway point |
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Procedure number |
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Committee responsible |
DEVE |
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Committee(s) asked for opinion(s) |
FEMM 6.6.2007 |
INTA 6.6.2007 |
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Not delivering opinion(s) |
FEMM |
INTA |
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Enhanced cooperation |
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Rapporteur(s) |
Glenys Kinnock |
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Previous rapporteur(s) |
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Discussed in committee |
11.4.2007 |
2.5.2007 |
4.6.2007 |
5.6.2007 |
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Date adopted |
5.6.2007 |
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Result of final vote |
+ - 0 |
18 10 0 |
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Members present for the final vote |
Margrete Auken, Margrietus van den Berg, Josep Borrell Fontelles, Danutė Budreikaitė, Corina Creţu, Nirj Deva, Alexandra Dobolyi, Fernando Fernández Martín, Filip Kaczmarek, Glenys Kinnock, Maria Martens, Luisa Morgantini, José Javier Pomés Ruiz, Miguel Portas, Horst Posdorf, José Ribeiro e Castro, Toomas Savi, Frithjof Schmidt, Jürgen Schröder, Feleknas Uca, Johan Van Hecke, Luis Yañez-Barnuevo García, Anna Záborská |
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Substitute(s) present for the final vote |
Miguel Angel Martínez Martínez, Manolis Mavrommatis, Pasqualina Napoletano, Anne Van Lancker, Ralf Walter |
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Substitute(s) under Rule 178(2) present for the final vote |
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Date tabled |
11.6.2007 |
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Comments |
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