15/7/2005
UN Agencies React To G8 Summit’s Commitments

The heads of United Nations agencies responsible for fighting poverty and promoting health in Africa have broadly welcomed the pledges made at last week's summit in Gleneagles, but have drawn attention to areas such as agricultural trade where they had expected more progress.

The head of the UN health agency said the unprecedented commitment to health in the G8 communiqué had the potential to change forever the lives of millions of people in Africa. He welcomed the pledges to provide near-universal access to AIDS treatment by 2010, to reach malaria targets with known and affordable interventions, and to continue support
through 2008 to help to eradicate polio.

“Disease kills 3.5 million African children under five every year,” World Health Organisation Director-General Lee Jong-wook noted. “HIV/AIDS affects more than 25 million African people. Tuberculosis kills 1,500 each day. A woman living in sub-Saharan Africa has a 1 in 16 chance of dying in pregnancy or childbirth. I welcome the G8's pledge to turn these trends round.”

The UN Development Programme (UNDP), which helps developing countries attract and use aid effectively, applauded the G8 pledge to double aid to Africa and eliminate outstanding debts from the poorest countries to the World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF) and other multilateral lenders, but noted that the summit fell short on other targets.

“Today was a good day for Africa and a good day for the fight against poverty, even if it was not so good on trade or climate change,” said UNDP Administrator, Mark Malloch Brown, who was at the Gleneagles Summit. But he noted that while the G8 leaders said they agreed in principle to phase out agricultural subsidies that have been shown to penalise developing country farmers, they did not set a firm timetable for the elimination.

“The outcome on trade was a disappointment, frankly, in contrast to the commitment for increased aid resources,” Mr. Malloch Brown said. “Citizens groups in industrialised nations and the leaders of the developing countries themselves must intensify pressure for the elimination of these unfair and costly subsidies, and the thorough reform of other trade practices that penalise the world’s poor.”