05 September 2005

Broken pledges fear as UN world summit nears

Disturbing new evidence released today shows millions of people in developing countries face a grim struggle for survival as the US and other rich nations look set to scupper UN plans to reduce global poverty.

In one in four of the villages surveyed by the charity ActionAid, people had witnessed deaths from starvation and hunger in the previous year. In two-thirds of communities, people reported missing meals during their lean season. People in a village in Tanzania had eaten just one meal a day for the last ten years. More than three quarters of 3,500 communities had to walk between two and six miles for healthcare. Almost one in three communities lacked a primary school – and girls in nine in ten villages did not attend school.

The warning follows what is thought to be the first-ever large-scale research based directly on the experiences of poor people on the UN millennium development goals. ActionAid conducted over 340,000 interviews in 5,000 communities in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nepal, India, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Vietnam, Ethiopia, Senegal, Malawi, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Somalia, Nigeria, Rwanda, Brazil and Guatemala.

The report, Development under attack, comes amid fears that the UN world summit in New York next week will end with the collapse of even the inadequate commitments made at the recent G8 talks. Japan, Germany and Italy have all distanced themselves from recent promises of new aid. And several European countries have sought to water down the G8 agreement to cancel all debts owed by 18 low-income countries to the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the African Development Bank.

ActionAid warns of millions of early deaths and millions of children denied education unless Tony Blair and other world leaders block a US bid to water down commitments in dozens of key areas. The charity says that unless the summit not only keeps the G8 vows, but pledges new action on aid, debt and trade, the UN will miss its target of halving poverty by 2015 – and Africa will miss every goal.

According to the report, 100 million more people are living in poverty in Africa than 15 years ago. Since 1990, in Africa life expectancy has fallen by 15 years. The number of people suffering from hunger has risen since 1997 and over 150 million children in developing countries are underweight. And amid the current lack of progress, by 2015 some 75 million children in more than 80 countries will still remain out of school.

The report’s author, ActionAid senior policy officer Patrick Watt, said: “Our research shames the wealthiest nations in its shocking evidence of how their lack of action traps millions of people in poverty. The world’s poor will not forgive them if they waste a vital opportunity at this summit both to reaffirm their commitments and agree further action.”