EuropaWorld 22/12/2000 Any News From Planet Earth?

If the hypothetical 'man from Mars' were asked to give a short report on whether, in the past three months, there had been any discernible progress by the population of Earth towards living together in a semblance of greater harmony, sharing in a more equal fashion the abundance that that planet provides and in ceasing to foul the source of that abundance, he might, having conscientiously read each edition of EuropaWorld, be inclined to write something like the following.

First, he might well stress that the general level of concern about such issues is not high either among governments or among the peoples. 'There are many other issues further up the political agenda' is perhaps the way it might be phrased. However, the need to give greater priority to development issues is becoming recognised more widely and at the highest levels in the international community. The deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations, no less, has said so, and so have others. This is encouraging, but at the moment there is more hope than expectation.

In an ideal world we should long ago have learnt to resolve conflicts before they broke out. Sadly there is little sign of ongoing progress to report in this direction. Efforts are focused on conflict resolution and they are both stumbling and hesitant. Expenditure on arms continues to distort global priorities and there is no sign at all of the major arms producing nations wishing to embrace tough protocols on arms transfers, despite numerous statements of good intent. On the ground for every conflict, such as that between Ethiopia and Eritrea that is snuffed out or, as in Afghanistan and Kashmir, where there has been some progress towards peace, other renewed and brutal conflicts have flared up. Africa has suffered particularly of late with 1.7 million fatalities reported in the Democratic Republic of Congo and continuing insurrections in Angola, Guinea, Sierra Leone and elsewhere.

Israel and Palestine, boxed as they are into instability and turbulence, have again erupted with tragic consequences. The international community as a whole shows little sign of being firmly resolved to end such disfiguring disputes. The United Nations Secretary General is driven to pleading for funds to modernise and render more effective peacekeeping operations, while the numbers of conflict refugees in the care of the UN High Commissioner exceeds 22 million. She too has to pass the begging bowl around.

The response to date has been far from overwhelming. One side of the developed world, Europe, has a good record of responding to appeals for United Nations funding; it pays its dues in timely fashion: sadly, attitudes on the other side of the Atlantic are less generous.

Europe also takes a broader view of sharing the world's resources between rich and poor nations. The European Union has opened its markets to 48 of the world's poorest countries and Britain has taken a lead in renouncing any benefit from debts that these countries owe to it. However, notwithstanding some interesting initiatives in the last three months there continues to be a discrepancy between ends and means. with few exceptions the commitments to poverty reduction, made at the UN Millennium Summit in September, have stubbornly failed to degenerate into action and remain, at best, good intentions.

Despite the wealth of the developed world only one additional country - Ireland - has in the last three months announced a timetable for meeting the UN aid target of 0.7% of GNP and so joining the very select group of only four countries - all European - that do so. One could reasonably have expected more to do so.

Meanwhile the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation has warned ominously that the world simply may not be in a position to meet hunger alleviation targets without a more focused approach to agricultural output. This should be a danger sign.

The international community is now pretty well agreed that the prime goal of development should be poverty reduction with all countries participating in a global economy. But Africa and South Asia, in particular, remain desperately poor, their economies blighted by AIDS, war, natural disasters, corruption. Integrating countries with such problems into the global economy in a way which brings positive benefit to them is not going to be easy. Some of the difficulties were outlined at a recent conference of African Trade Ministers; major help will be required, but the news that 15 East African nations have signed an agreement designed to lead to international trade and co-operation on the European Union model was welcome and deserves support.

Last, the stewardship of the planet, another area in which progress in the last three months has also been mixed. The natural environment continues to be eroded and bio-diversity lost. World leaders have successfully signed a treaty banning persistent organic pollutants but signally failed to reach an agreement on how to reduce Carbon Dioxide volumes in the atmosphere. Meanwhile evidence of climate disturbance continues to mount with record droughts and floods in many regions of the world. Elsewhere the threat to the natural world from illegal depredation has, in the last three months, manifested itself in new or reinvigorated campaigns to save tigers and other large cats, elephants, rare domestic breeds dugongs, sturgeon, forests and fish. None of these threats are doubted but the reality is that the resources devoted to achieving these worthwhile ends are in virtually every case insufficient to do more than mount a rearguard action. Enlightenment, it seems, is still some way off

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