World Leaders Meet to Discuss Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)

October 11, 2005

Godwin Muhwezi Bonge

When Peace Musherure lost her husband, she neither had land nor a regular income to fend for her four sons.

But through her hard work, she managed to buy six acres of land and for a moment, life seemed to be heading for the brighter side, until her sons started demanding for a share of their inheritance and started dividing her piece of land amongst themselves.

Helpless, she watched her own flesh and blood condemn her to a life of misery.

Currently, she barely has land to grow vegetables. At her advanced age, she cannot do much to revert her misfortune and now lives on handouts from sympathisers and relatives.

Musherure's case is typical of Uganda's rural society: large families, land disputes and fragmented pieces of land are all engines of rural poverty.

According to the 2003 United Nations Development Program (UNDP) report, it is estimated that 50 million people in Sub-Saharan Africa survive on less than a dollar a day. Of these, 9.5 million people live in Uganda, making it one of the countries with high poverty rates. It is such events in developing countries that prompted the United Nations (UN) to convene a world summit where leaders would gather to discuss the progress on millennium goals (MDGs) - a set of goals that range from halving extreme poverty to halting the spread of HIV/Aids, providing universal primary education and achieving environmental sustainability all by the target date of 2015.

While not as strong as environmental and conservation groups had hoped, environmental issues were at least mentioned in the final official UN document. Issues addressed included oceans, biodiversity, climate change, forests, toxics, freshwater, long-term sustainable development and replenishment of the Global Environment Facility.

Issues addressed

The Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) says the outcome document addresses key environmental issues, acknowledges the link between development and the environment. However, Gordon Shepherd, the WWF Director of International Policy said, "We have a long way to go, but as the key 'to do' list for all world leaders, the document provides a crucial hook for environment issues to be integrated in development policy," adding that the environment and development communities have a real opportunity to work together to achieve sustainable development.

The document was negotiated by more than 170 nations and sets the United Nations agenda for the next several years, including the distribution of more than US$400b of government aid to developing countries.

In a bid to promote poverty eradication through conservation worldwide, the World Conservation Union (IUCN) committed a total investment of US$ 300m.

While speaking at the launch of this initiative at the Poverty-Environment Partnership, Achim Steiner, the Director General of the World IUCN, reminded the world leaders that poverty is about access and rights, and the poor stay poor because they do not have rights.

"One of our goals is to help them get and claim their rights to use and manage the natural resources they use and live with," Steiner said. He called on global partnership for local action and policy change to allow poor rural communities to directly benefit from the goods and services of healthy ecosystems. Such services include clean water, food, fuel and fibre, medicines and climate control.

And these cannot be provided without biodiversity.

"Unless we change the way we use natural resources and distribute the wealth generated, the MDGs will remain unrealistic," read a joint statement issued by the heads of five international conventions dealing with Biological Diversity that include: the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), the Convention on International Trade in endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), the Convention on Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS), the Convention on Wetlands and the World Heritage Centre (WHC).

"Failure to conserve and use biological diversity sustainably will perpetuate inequitable and unsustainable growth, deeper poverty, new and more rampant illnesses, continued loss of species, and a world with ever-more degraded environments, which are less healthy for people," the statement read. Mr Sam Kuteesa, the Minister for Foreign Affairs told the general assembly that Africa's lack of stability, peace and security had contributed to its failure to make substantial progress in reaching the Millennium Goals.

What needs to be done

However, Mr Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, the President of Uganda felt the manner in which development financing is administered by donor agencies, is the major reason behind Africa's poverty.

"The best form of assistance was through budget support, which should transpire through banks that encourage domestic savings on the part of people who earn good wages," Museveni noted.

Much as the document addressed key developmental and environmental issues, it failed to mention the need to focus on the Kyoto Protocol, an agreement on global warming reached by the United Nations Conference on Climate Change in Kyoto, Japan, in 1997 as the key instrument for future action on climate change.

Also, the Millennium Development Goal 7 (which addresses environmental issues) is inadequately recognised as being fundamental to the other MDGs in the document.

"There is need to inject strong language on capacity building, environmental services and on integrating environmental considerations in poverty reduction strategies," Shepherd said, adding that much work needs to be done as the agreement is implemented and major gaps addressed in the future.

Also missing were key texts on disarmament, human rights, peace building, women's rights, and providing collective and human security.