Japan must keep ODA promises to gain permanent UNSC seat: UN report

Japan Policy & Politics, Jan 18, 2005

NEW YORK, Jan. 17 Kyodo

The head of the United Nations Millennium Project submitted a report Monday to U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan on implementing the Millennium Development goals, recommending that countries such as Japan coveting permanent membership on the U.N. Security Council should fulfill their official development assistance commitments.

''Developed countries aspiring to permanent seats on the U.N. Security Council, for example, should be prepared to fulfill the commitment to 0.7 of GNP in ODA by 2015 as part of their leadership responsibilities,'' the report said.

In 2002, 22 donor countries signed the Monterrey Consensus in Monterrey, Mexico, agreeing to pledge 0.7 percent of their gross national product as aid to developing nations.

''Every country, and that includes Japan, should follow through on the commitments that it has made,'' Millennium Project head Jeffrey Sachs said.

''But with respect to the Security Council,'' he said, ''certainly any country that aspires to the global leadership of that sort should absolutely take on the global responsibility that it's committed itself to, including the 0.7 commitment.''

Japan currently contributes 19.5 percent of the U.N. budget and 0.2 percent of its GNP as part of the Monterrey Consensus.

Calling his report ''The opposite of a blank check,'' Sachs said his plan calls for identifiable and measurable investments that can be monitored and says he sees signs that governments around the world are ready to act due to a change in mindset.

The report, which includes 10 key recommendations, and along with another report released in December by Annan's high-level panel, is crucial to Annan's own conclusions on U.N. reform slated for submission to member states in March.

Sachs' report, entitled ''Investing in Development -- A Practical Plan to Achieve the Millennium Development Goals,'' includes input from 265 experts in the development field and took three years to complete.

''Simply honoring the commitments on both sides -- good governance, adequate financing, open trade, access to global science and technology -- could end extreme poverty on this planet within our generation and certainly bring it down by half by the year 2015, which is the commitment of the Millennium Development Goals,'' said Sachs, an economist and professor at Columbia University.

Among the 10 key recommendations is the resetting of current poverty reduction strategies to become Millennium Development Goal oriented and $7 billion in donations for science investments.

It encourages Annan to strengthen U.N. agencies, funds and programs, and developed countries to open markets to developing ones through the Doha trade round by 2006. It recommends identifying 12 ''fast track'' developing countries to receive greater official development assistance based on good governance.

Also included are a joint series of ''Quick Win'' actions such as the distribution of soil nutrients for smallholder farmers and bed-nets to prevent malaria, which Sachs calls a ''silent tsunami.''

''The world has made a generous outpouring for the tsunami but is unaware as I've said that 150,000 children are dying every month of a readily preventable nature from malaria,'' Sachs said.

''Investing in Development'' encourages developed countries to increase ODA to 0.44 percent of GNP by 2006 and to 0.54 percent of GNP by 2015, finally reaching the agreed pledge of 0.7 percent of GNP no later than 2015.

''This is the biggest obstacle in the world, is the lack of a clear understanding of how addressable this challenge is and what a bargain it is to address it,'' Sachs said. ''And if the public can understand this better I believe that there will be the commensurate response.'' =