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| Author: | Esther Pan |
|---|
September 14, 2005
More than 170 world leaders are meeting in New York September 14-16 to address progress toward the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDG), an ambitious program to reduce global poverty and improve human development that UN member states agreed to in 2000. The MDG are part of a larger, multi-year effort to reform the entire United Nations. This week, leaders will also sign a draft resolution on UN reform; the document emerged after marathon negotiations, including incorporating hundreds of changes made by U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton on references to the environment, poverty, and the MDG themselves. Critics say the compromises—and the UN’s culture of consensus, which often leads to indecision and paralysis—have left the document toothless and prevented yet another attempt to achieve substantive UN reform. “It’s a well-meaning document that’s neither realistic nor specific enough in its details,” says James Paul, executive director of the Global Policy Forum, a UN policy watchdog group.
The 35-page reform document focuses on the following seven issues, many of which have been contested by the United States :
The MDG are a project of the UN, which is undergoing a multi-year effort to reform its own institutions in the wake of embarrassing mismanagement scandals like that engulfing the oil-for-food program. A report issued last week by an independent committee headed by former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker found significant mismanagement and corruption in the program, including UN officials who took bribes from Saddam Hussein. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who took responsibility for the oil-for-food problems, has pushed hard for the last two years to enact real reforms—like expanding the UN Security Council to reflect more of the world’s population—of the United Nations.
The eight main goals are:
Bolton says the United States supports the Millennium Goals, but not the codification of them into targets and timetables. The U.S. delegation pushed to change the wording in the draft resolution from MDG to “internationally agreed development goals.” It also wanted to add references to the Monterrey Consensus, the result of a 2002 summit in Mexico that said developing countries needed to take more responsibility for their own growth by fighting corruption, improving their infrastructures, and making themselves more attractive to foreign investment and domestic economic activity.
Experts say it’s possible substantive decisions will be made, even if they are not enshrined in the draft resolution. “Expectations were very high, maybe too high” for the document, says Suzanne DiMaggio, executive director of global policy programs at the UN Association of the USA. “This [struggle] has brought us back to reality.” The resolution—like most high-level documents signed by heads of state—will focus on broad, general values, she says, and the specific details will be worked out during the General Assembly session. “The document is more aspirational than actionable,” she says.
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