Massive resource transfers to poor countries from rich countries are needed if the world wants to attain its Millennium Developmental Goals (MDGs), South African President Thabo Mbeki said late on Tuesday.
He told the 62nd session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York that there is an urgent need for resource transfers to poor countries — through development assistance, investment, trade, technology and human resources.
”As we all accept, central to the attainment of MDGs globally is the critical matter of resource transfers from the rich countries of the North to poor countries of the South,” Mbeki said in a speech released by his office on Wednesday.
”Many developing countries, especially those from my own continent, Africa, do not have the material base from which to address and attain the MDGs on their own.”
Mbeki, who said he believes South Africa will attain its MDGs, urged richer countries to enter into partnerships with African countries using the African Union’s New Partnership for Africa’s Development (Nepad).
He said this would strengthen the measures the continent already took with limited resources, through international community-guided programmes of the UN that adopted Nepad.
Referring to the resource transfers in the aftermath of World War II that helped Western Europe recover, Mbeki asked the question why there is an absence of the same resolve to assist poor nations today. He said a similar intervention helped a number of Asian countries on to their own development trajectory.
He also said the UN has not yet transformed itself or ”designed the necessary institutions of governance consistent with the noble ideals that drive modern democratic societies”.
The reason for this is that the world is defined by the dominant and the dominated. ”The dominant have also become the decision makers in the important global forums, including at this seat of global governance.
”Accordingly, the skewed distribution of power in the world — political, economic, military, technological and social — replicates itself in multilateral institutions, much to the disadvantage of the majority of the poor people of the world.”
Mbeki said although the UN correctly identifies problems and makes solutions that will make the world a better place for all, it is guided by the interests of the rich.
”Naturally, the dominant and the powerful very often respond positively to agreed programmes if these would advance their own narrow interests,” he said.
Until ideals of freedom, justice and equality characterise the UN, rich nations will dictate to the ”dominated”. ”The interests of the dominated, which are those of the majority of humanity, would be deferred in perpetuity.”
Mbeki urged the world’s nations to let actions speak louder than words and to stop making ”declaration after declaration against poverty and underdevelopment” without meaning it. — Sapa