Mr. Paul Hewson, aka Bono, had an Opinion in Sept 18's NYT. Thought
folks might find it interesting.

Brian

September 18, 2010
M.D.G.’s for Beginners ... and Finishers
By BONO

I’ve noticed that New Yorkers, and I sometimes try to pass for one
these days, tend to greet the word “summit” with an irritated roll of
the eyes, a grunt, an impatient glance at the wristwatch. In
Manhattan, a summit has nothing to do with crampons and ice picks, but
refers instead to a large gathering of important persons,
head-of-state types and their rock-star retinues in the vicinity of
the United Nations building and creates, therefore, a near total
immobilization of the East Side. Can world peace possibly be worth
this? Never, never...Eleanor Roosevelt, look what you’ve done ... .

Recent global summit meetings, from Copenhagen to Toronto, have
frankly been a bust, so the world, which may not know it yet, is
overdue for a good multilateral confab — one that’s not just about the
gabbing but about the doing. The subject of the summit meeting at the
United Nations this week is one whose monumental importance is matched
only by its minuscule brand recognition: the Millennium Development
Goals, henceforth known as the M.D.G.’s (God save us from such dull
shorthand).

The M.D.G.’s are possibly the most visionary deal that most people
have never heard of. In the run-up to the 21st century, a grand global
bargain was negotiated at a series of summit meetings and then signed
in 2000. The United Nations’ “Millennium Declaration” pledged to
“ensure that globalization becomes a positive force for all the
world’s people,” especially the most marginalized in developing
countries. It wasn’t a promise of rich nations to poor ones; it was a
pact, a partnership, in which each side would meet obligations to its
own citizens and to one another.

Of course, this is the sort of airy-fairy stuff that people at summit
meetings tend to say and get away with because no one else can bear to
pay attention. The 2000 gathering was different, though, because
signatories agreed to specific goals on a specific timeline: cutting
hunger and poverty in half, giving all girls and boys a basic
education, reducing infant and maternal mortality by two-thirds and
three-quarters respectively, and reversing the spread of AIDS,
tuberculosis and malaria. All by 2015. Give it an A for Ambition.

So where are we now, 10 years on, with some “first-world” economies
looking as if they could go bang, and some second- and third-level
economies looking as if they could be propping us up?

Well, I’d direct you to the plenary sessions and panel discussions for
a detailed answer...but if you’re, eh, busy this week...my view, based
on the data and what I’ve seen on the ground, is that in many places
it’s going better than you’d think.

Much better, in fact. Tens of millions more kids are in school thanks
to debt cancellation. Millions of lives have been saved through the
battle against preventable disease, thanks especially to the Global
Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. Apart from fallout from
the market meltdown, economic growth in Africa has been gathering pace
— over 5 percent per year in the decade ending in 2009. Poverty
declined by 1 percent a year from 1999 to 2005.

The gains made by countries like Ghana show the progress the
Millennium Goals have helped create.

At the same time, the struggles of places like Congo remind us of the
distance left to travel. There are serious headwinds: 64 million
people have been thrown back into poverty as a result of the financial
crises, and 150 million are hungry because of the food crisis. And
extending the metaphor, there are storms on the horizon: the poor will
be hit first — and worst — by climate change.

So there should be no Champagne toasts at this year’s summit meeting.
The 10th birthday of our millennium is, or ought to be, a purposeful
affair, a redoubling of efforts. After all, there’s only five years
before 2015, only five years to make all that Second Avenue gridlock
worth it. With that in mind I’d like to offer three near-term tests of
our commitment to the M.D.G.’s.

1. Find what works and then expand on it. Will mechanisms like the
Global Fund get the resources to do the job?

Energetic, efficient and effective, the fund saves a staggering 4,000
lives a day. Even a Wall Streeter would have to admit, that’s some
return on investment. But few are aware of it, a fact that allows key
countries — from the United States to Britain, France and Germany — to
go unnoticed if they ease off the throttle. The unsung successes of
the fund should be, well, sung, and after this summit meeting, its
work needs to be fully financed. This would help end the absurdity of
death by mosquito, and the preventable calamity of 1,000 babies being
born every day with H.I.V., passed to them by their mothers who had no
access to the effective, inexpensive medicines that exist.

2. Governance as an effect multiplier. In this column last spring, I
described some Africans I’ve met who see corruption as more deadly
than the deadliest of diseases, a cancer that eats at the foundation
of good governance even as the foundation is being built. I don’t just
mean “their” corruption; I mean ours, too. For example, multinational
oil companies. They want oil, and governments of poor countries rich
in just one thing, black gold, want to sell it to them. All well and
good. Except the way it too often happens, as democracy campaigners in
these countries point out, is not at all good. Some of these companies
knowingly participate in a system of backhanders and bribery that ends
up cheating the host nation and turning what should be a resource
blessing into a kind of curse of black market cabals.

Well, I’m pleased to give you an update on an intervention that some
of us thought of and fought for as critical: hidden somewhere in the
Dodd-Frank financial reform bill (admit it...you haven’t read it all
either) there is a hugely significant “transparency” amendment, added
by Senators Richard Lugar and Benjamin Cardin. Now energy companies
traded on American exchanges will have to reveal every payment they
make to government officials. If money changes hands, it will happen
in the open. This is the kind of daylight that makes the cockroaches
scurry.

The British government should institute the same requirement for
companies trading in Britain, as should the rest of the European Union
and ultimately all the G-20 nations. According to the African
entrepreneur Mo Ibrahim, who has emerged as one of the most important
voices on that continent, transparency could do more to transform
Africa than even debt cancellation has. Measures like this one should
be central to any renewed Millennium Development Goal strategy.

And the cost to us is zero, nada. It’s a clear thought in a traffic jam.

3. Demand clarity; measure inputs and outputs.

Speaking of transparency, let’s have a little more, please, when it
comes to the question of who is doing what toward which goal and to
what effect. We have to know where we are to know how far we’ve left
to go.

Right now it’s near impossible to keep track. Walk (if you dare) into
M.D.G. World and you will encounter a dizzying array of vague
financing and policy commitments on critical issues, from maternal
mortality to agricultural development. You come across a load of
bureau-babble that too often is used to hide double counting, or mask
double standards. This is the stuff that feeds the cynics.

What we need is an independent unit — made up of people from
governments, the private sector and civil society — to track pledges
and progress, not just on aid but also on trade, governance,
investment. It’s essential for the credibility of the United Nations,
the M.D.G.’s, and all who work toward them.

And that was the deal, wasn’t it? The promise we made at the start of
this century was not to perpetuate the old relationships between
donors and recipients, but to create new ones, with true partners
accountable to each other and above all to the citizens these systems
are supposed to work for. Strikes me as the right sort of arrangement
for an age of austerity as well as interdependence. (The age of
interrupted affluence should sharpen our focus on future markets for
our sake as well as theirs.)

No leader scheduled to speak at the summit meeting is more painfully
aware of this context than President Obama, who one year ago pledged
to put forth a global plan to reach the development goals. If
promoting transparency and investing in what works is at the core of
that strategy, he can assure Americans that their dollars are
reinforcing their values, and their leadership in the world is
undiminished. Action is required to make these words, these dull
statistics, sing. The tune may not be pop but it won’t leave your head
— this practical, achievable idea that the world, now out of kilter,
can re-balance itself and offer all, not just some, a chance to exit
the unfathomable deprivation that brings about the need for such
global bargains.

I understand the critics who groan or snooze through the pious
pronouncements we will hear from the podium in the General Assembly.
But still in my heart and mind, undiminished and undaunted, is this
thought planted by Nelson Mandela in his quest to tackle extreme
poverty: “Sometimes it falls upon a generation to be great.”

We have a lot to prove, but if the M.D.G. agreement had not been made
in 2000, much less would have happened than has happened. Already,
we’ve seen transformative results for millions of people whose lives
are shaped by the priorities of people they will never know or meet —
the very people causing gridlock this week. For this at least, the
world should thank New Yorkers for the loan of their city.

Bono, the lead singer of the band U2 and a co-founder of the advocacy
group ONE and (Product)RED, is a contributing columnist for The Times.


On Mon, Sep 20, 2010 at 11:11 AM, Coates, Rodney D. Dr.
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
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> Fyi…
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> for more of my work please go to:
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> http://www.redroom.com/author/rodney-d-coates
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> The man who has no imagination has no wings.
> Muhammad Ali
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> Rodney D. Coates
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> Professor
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> Feed: BBC News - Home
> Posted on: Monday, September 20, 2010 10:39 AM
> Author: BBC News - Home
> Subject: UN millennium goals 'can be met'
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> UN chief Ban Ki-moon says global targets to reduce poverty and hunger by 2015 can be met if enough work is done.
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> View article...