Budget squeeze no excuse to let targets slip
BRUSSELS, 6th May, 2011: The first UN summit for the world's poorest countries in a decade must ensure that developed nations make good on commitments to help the most destitute, a global coalition of over 1000 civil society organizations said today.
"Richer nations cannot use the economic crisis as an excuse not to follow through on their engagements," said Tony Tujan, co-chair of BetterAid.
"This week's conference must ensure the immediate flow of 0.15 percent - 0.20 percent of the total gross national income of developed countries to the less developed countries, in line with previous commitments."
The four-day United Nations conference on the 48 Less Developed Countries opens in Istanbul on 9 May. The so-called LDC-4 summit will adopt an "action program" for the coming decade that is likely to include a target of cutting the number of people suffering from poverty and hunger by half.
BetterAid insists the Istanbul summit must go beyond good intentions to produce concrete results that go beyond the limited achievements of the last LDC conference in 2001.
"The Istanbul meeting must transcend business as usual to yield robust and ambitious plans so that the gap between the haves and have nots can be narrowed down significantly, if not eliminated, within the coming decade," said Arjun Karki from LDC Watch and BetterAid. "It is a tragedy that in the 21st century there are still populations categorized as poor, excluded, and vulnerable."
In particular, the poorest nations need funding in addition to already committed development money to help them cope with the effects of climate change. The entire group of LDCs emits only about 0.5 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, yet their populations are hit the hardest by the impact of global warming.
The Least Developed Countries have a combined population of 885 million of whom 75 per cent are living on less than $2 a day.
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BetterAid unites over one thousand development organizations from civil society worldwide, and has been working on development cooperation and challenging the aid effectiveness agenda since January 2007. BetterAid is leading many of the civil society activities including in-country consultations, studies and monitoring, in the lead up to the Fourth High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness (HLF4) in Busan in November 2011. www.betteraid.org
Open Forum for CSO Development Effectiveness is a fully participatory international CSO-driven process involving some 3000 organizations in national, regional and international consultations to build consensus on commonly accepted principles of CSO development effectiveness and their implementation as well as the minimum standards for an enabling environment on behalf of donors and partner governments. On the road to HLF4, Open Forum will be finalizing its International Framework for CSO Development Effectiveness at its second Global Assembly in June 2011. www.cso-effectiveness.org.
Press contacts
If you would like more information, or would like an interview with the people mentioned above, contact Clare Birkett, Communications Officer, +32 (0)487270536, http://www.betteraid.org/.
For more information about the Open Forum, please contact Olga Kozhaeva, Communications Associate, +32 (0)477686153, http://www.cso-effectiveness.org.
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