The Hindu : International / India & World : `Millennium Development Goals must be met'

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Monday, Apr 18, 2005

International

International - India & World

`Millennium Development Goals must be met'

Sridhar Krishnaswami

India on track; efforts on to raise income levels: Chidambaram

WASHINGTON: : The Millennium Development Goals are too important to fail, the Finance Minister, P. Chidambaram, said in a statement to the Development Committee here on Sunday. Five years down the road, only a third of the distance has been traversed with the fact being the global community is "already lagging in our tryst with targets set for achievement by 2015," he said.

Mr. Chidambaram, while talking about the Global Monitoring Report, said that five crucial years had passed since the eight MDGs were accepted as a global compact. The Minister said that the Global Monitoring Report "euphemistically" stated states that the overall increase in ODA from 2001 to 2003 has been $16.7 billion; but the composition of increase reflected a "fairly disturbing trend." For instance technical cooperation accounted for $4 billion of the $16 billion in aid flows, whereas multilateral and bilateral aid accounted for only $1.8 billion.

Turning to India, Mr. Chidambaram said that the country seemed to be "comfortably on track" to meet the MDG in terms of reducing poverty thanks to a high growth performance in the 1990s. There was also awareness that for India to meet the 2015 targets "an extraordinary effort" would be required, especially in the poorest or "lagging" states, district and communities.

Tackling poverty

"The post-1991 reforms pursued by the Government have already put India on a high growth trajectory. We are now in the process of introducing `second generation reforms.' All these efforts would go a long way in raising income levels of the people and, hopefully, in wiping out extreme poverty in India by 2015," Mr. Chidambaram said.

The Finance Minister once again spoke of the "democracy deficit" pertaining as it pertained to governance in international financial institutions, which, he said, must be addressed to enhance "legitimacy, transparency, accountability and ownership of the decision-making process. "We strongly urge gaining of `momentum' towards tackling the central issue of voting power. The set of determinants presently used in computing the economic strength of the countries are not a true reflection of economic realities that have tilted the Funds' and the Bank's governance structure toward the developed countries."

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`Millennium Development Goals must be met'