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26 June 2000
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26 June 2000
Following are introductory remarks made by United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan at a press conference at the Palais des Nations on 26 June 2000 to launch a report prepared jointly by the United Nations, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. The report is entitled "A Better World for All".
"I am glad to see so many of you here, on the first day of the United Nations General Assembly's Special Session on development, for the launch of this important and timely report.
During the 1990's, United Nations world conferences set major goals for economic and social development. All countries, developed and developing alike, signed on to this agenda, often at the highest political level. Since then people have been asking whether the world has made good on these commitments. What has worked? What did not, and why? And what can we do better?
This report provides some answers. It is the product of unprecedented collaboration among four major multilateral organizations. And it responds to a specific request from the G-8 countries that such a report be prepared - to help monitor progress in the reduction of poverty worldwide. And to guide them in their partnership with developing countries.
The result is a common understanding --- a score card and policy road-map with which to measure progress in banishing extreme poverty from our world and in achieving the targets set by the world conferences of the past decade.
We are launching the report today-- in Geneva--- and in Paris--- because it addresses the very same issues being examined by the "Copenhagen Plus Five" Special Session that starts today. We hope that the two events will reinforce each other, and serve as a springboard for action.
The report has three main messages:
First, considerable progress is being made in achieving each of the seven international development goals that the report outlines. In recent decades most countries have seen big improvements in life expectancy, and big declines in infant and maternal mortality. We have seen more and more children, especially girls, gain access to education. But progress had been uneven. Some countries and regions are taking big steps, while others see little improvement - and a few see none at all, or even a decline.
Secondly, the targets can be met. The goals are not utopian. They are ambitious, but achievable. To reach them, we will need to work hard. In every region of the world there are some countries which have made rapid progress, showing other what can be done.
That brings me to the report's third message, which is that if we are to succeed, developed and developing countries must work together- in ways that, up to now, they have not been willing to do. Developed countries, especially, must do more to open their markets to products from developing ones, as giving more generous debt relief and official development assistance.
Poverty is an affront to our common humanity. It also makes many other problems worse. Poor countries are far more likely to be embroiled in conflicts. It is in poor countries that the worst effects of HIV/AIDS and other diseases are concentrated. And it is poor countries- especially the least developed, and those in sub-Saharan Africa - that most often lack the capacity and resources to protect the environment.
In an interdependent world, that is something that should concern all of us. That is why the United Nations, the World Bank, the IMF and OECD have joined forces. We believe a better world can be ours. We believe we can put the great new global market within reach of the poor. We believe globalization can be a positive force for all the world's people.
That message is also at the heart of my own Report - "We, the Peoples" -- which I have put before the Member States in preparation for the Millennium Summit in September. That report, too, deals with poverty - but also with conflict and the environment. It is aimed at helping world leaders to arrive in New York ready to make concrete commitments -- to their peoples, and to the United Nations".
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Following are introductory remarks made by United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan at a press conference at the Palais des Nations on 26 June 2000 to launch a report prepared jointly by the United Nations, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. The report is entitled "A Better World for All".
"I am glad to see so many of you here, on the first day of the United Nations General Assembly's Special Session on development, for the launch of this important and timely report.
During the 1990's, United Nations world conferences set major goals for economic and social development. All countries, developed and developing alike, signed on to this agenda, often at the highest political level. Since then people have been asking whether the world has made good on these commitments. What has worked? What did not, and why? And what can we do better?
This report provides some answers. It is the product of unprecedented collaboration among four major multilateral organizations. And it responds to a specific request from the G-8 countries that such a report be prepared - to help monitor progress in the reduction of poverty worldwide. And to guide them in their partnership with developing countries.
The result is a common understanding --- a score card and policy road-map with which to measure progress in banishing extreme poverty from our world and in achieving the targets set by the world conferences of the past decade.
We are launching the report today-- in Geneva--- and in Paris--- because it addresses the very same issues being examined by the "Copenhagen Plus Five" Special Session that starts today. We hope that the two events will reinforce each other, and serve as a springboard for action.
The report has three main messages:
First, considerable progress is being made in achieving each of the seven international development goals that the report outlines. In recent decades most countries have seen big improvements in life expectancy, and big declines in infant and maternal mortality. We have seen more and more children, especially girls, gain access to education. But progress had been uneven. Some countries and regions are taking big steps, while others see little improvement - and a few see none at all, or even a decline.
Secondly, the targets can be met. The goals are not utopian. They are ambitious, but achievable. To reach them, we will need to work hard. In every region of the world there are some countries which have made rapid progress, showing other what can be done.
That brings me to the report's third message, which is that if we are to succeed, developed and developing countries must work together- in ways that, up to now, they have not been willing to do. Developed countries, especially, must do more to open their markets to products from developing ones, as giving more generous debt relief and official development assistance.
Poverty is an affront to our common humanity. It also makes many other problems worse. Poor countries are far more likely to be embroiled in conflicts. It is in poor countries that the worst effects of HIV/AIDS and other diseases are concentrated. And it is poor countries- especially the least developed, and those in sub-Saharan Africa - that most often lack the capacity and resources to protect the environment.
In an interdependent world, that is something that should concern all of us. That is why the United Nations, the World Bank, the IMF and OECD have joined forces. We believe a better world can be ours. We believe we can put the great new global market within reach of the poor. We believe globalization can be a positive force for all the world's people.
That message is also at the heart of my own Report - "We, the Peoples" -- which I have put before the Member States in preparation for the Millennium Summit in September. That report, too, deals with poverty - but also with conflict and the environment. It is aimed at helping world leaders to arrive in New York ready to make concrete commitments -- to their peoples, and to the United Nations".
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