US BLOCKS AID INCREASE
The US yesterday blocked an agreement to increase drastically development
aid to poor countries struggling to meet the United Nations' target of
halving world poverty by 2015, according to the Financial Times, London.

In negotiations ahead of the UN conference on development financing in
Monterrey, Mexico, at the end of March, Washington was unwilling to support
a commitment to increase the amount developed countries spend on development
assistance to 0.7 per cent of gross national product, from the average of
0.22 per cent.

The UN estimates rich countries would need to double the US$50bn (£34bn)
they spend annually on development to achieve the goals 189 countries agreed
at the UN's millennium summit. Those aspirations include: reducing by half
the number of people suffering poverty, hunger or lacking access to drinking
water; achieving universal primary schooling; drastically reducing maternal
and infant morality rates; and halting the spread of HIV/Aids, malaria and
other diseases.

Non-governmental organisations and many members of the G77 group of
developing countries reacted with dismay over the significantly weakened
Monterrey text agreed yesterday by representatives from more than 100
countries and the world's large financial institutions.

Developing countries and many NGO's had hoped to use the meeting to address
some of the shortcomings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank
and carve out a larger say for themselves in decisions over development
policy.

But the US and other stakeholders, who wield considerable power within the
institutions, were careful to avoid any language that could have weakened
the mandate of the institutions or increased the say of the UN General
Assembly, where every country holds an equal vote.

SOURCE: Financial Times, 29/01/2002