WSSD-GERMANY:
Gradual Increase in Aid Despite Havoc Wrought by Floods
by Ramesh Jaura
BERLIN, Aug 21 (IPS) - Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder - who
is busy battling the damage wrought by Germany's worst floods
in centuries - will attend the Johannesburg Summit next week
and reaffirm the country's commitment to gradually increase
financial assistance to the needy countries in Africa, Asia
and Latin America.
The decision to take part in the World
Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) was confirmed by
Schroeder himself at a meeting with foreign correspondents
Wednesday in the Chancellery in Berlin.
Unprecedented floods across the country
are forcing the German Chancellor to seek effective and quick
relief measures. At the same time, he is faced with an uphill
task to win re-election on Sep 22.
Presently, Germany provides less than
0,3 percent of its gross national income (GNI) as official
development assistance (ODA).
That is a far cry from the target of
0.7 percent agreed some three decades ago by the United Nations
and reaffirmed by Germany and other rich countries at the
1992 Earth Summit in Rio. ODA was for a long time the main
source of cash for the world's poorest countries.
Government spokesman Uwe-Karsten Heye
told IPS that in his address to the Johannesburg Summit on
Sep 2, the Chancellor would reaffirm Germany's commitment
to gradually increase ODA.
Last March Germany joined other members
of the 15-nation European Union (EU) that pledged, as a first
significant step towards reaching the 0.7 percent target,
to bring the average of ODA/GNI ratio to 0,39 percent by 2006.
The EU provided a total of 26 billion dollar in 2001. This
amounts to an average of ODA/GNI ratio of 0.33 percent.
The commitment made by the EU was to
no mean extent because of the insistence of Germany's Minister
for Economic Cooperation and Development, Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul.
She attaches great importance to fulfilling the pledge given
at the International Conference on Financing for Development
in Monterrey last March.
''Johannesburg is not about new impressive
concepts and objectives,'' she says. ''We already have a plenty
of concepts and objectives. Johannesburg must put their implementation
in the foreground. Johannesburg must turn out to be a world
summit of action and binding action plans.''
These should encompass, she says, issues
such as water, energy, health, agriculture and biodiversity,
which according to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan require
urgent action at the WSSD.
Most countries have agreed to a set of
ambitious targets for poverty reduction and sustainable development
through the development goals contained in the UN Millennium
Development Declaration two years ago.
Achieving the targets set for 2015 -
including reducing extreme poverty by half and eliminating
hunger - is a major challenge for all countries, says Wieczorek-Zeul.
She and Environment Minister Juergen Trittin will jointly
lead the German delegation with in the absence of Chancellor
Schroeder.
The German Economic Cooperation Minister
is convinced that increasing trade and investment liberalisation
- accompanied by appropriate national policies to ensure social
and environmental benefits as well as economic growth - are
also of vital importance for sustainable development.
Equally important is the need to expand
market access for some of the poorest countries that have
been left at the margins of globalisation. Lack of capacity
has to some extent prevented them from taking advantage of
these opportunities, but the persistence of trade barriers
in rich countries is also to blame.
According to the Paris-based Organisation
for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the gain
to developing countries from unrestricted access to industrial
country markets for textiles and clothing, other manufactured
goods, and agricultural products could total 43 billion dollar
per year.
''Gradually reducing these trade barriers
could also increase the welfare of OECD citizens by lowering
consumer prices, improving the allocation of resources and,
in some cases, reducing pressures on the environment,'' says
the OECD in a recent paper.
Efforts to remove trade distortions are
being strengthened through the Doha Development Agenda of
the World Trade Organisation. Other initiatives, specifically
aimed to increase market access for products from the least
developed countries, could complement this process, says the
OECD.
For Wieczorek-Zeul it is a question of
the credibility of developed countries. If they do not fulfil
the pledges given at international conferences, developing
countries would be justified in accusing them of ''double-speak''.
A case in point is that OECD countries
together spend 360 billion dollar for protecting their agricultural
markets. That is about seven times the amount all the OECD
countries provide for ODA every year.
The German Economic Cooperation Minister
favours the establishment of a Global Council for Sustainable
Development. The EU in its agenda paper for the WSSD backs
her plea and urges for developing ''an effective institutional
framework for sustainable development at international, regional
and national levels''.
The EU paper says: ''At international
level, it is necessary to strengthen the role of ECOSOC (UN
Economic and Social Council) in the follow-up to the WSSD,
to give more emphasis to implementation issues in the work
of the Commission for Sustainable Development (CSD) and to
reinforce cooperation on sustainable development between UN
bodies, the Bretton Woods institutions and the WTO.'' (END/2002)
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