Why 0.7% matters for the Millennium Development Goals by The UN Millennium Project 9:06am 2nd Sep, 2005   At the turn of the new millennium, the leaders of 191 nations agreed that together they have the resources and the political will to eradicate the extreme poverty, hunger and disease that kills millions of people each year in the poorest parts of the world.    During September 14-16, 2005, the largest gathering of world leaders will meet at the UN World Summit to discuss the Millennium Development Goals and what needs to be done to achieve them over the next ten years.    What is the 0.7% target?    0.7 refers to the repeated commitment of the world's governments to commit 0.7% of rich-countries' gross national product (GNP) to Official Development Assistance.    First pledged 35 years ago in a 1970 General Assembly Resolution, the 0.7 target has been affirmed in many international agreements over the years, including the March 2002 International Conference on Financing for Development in Monterrey, Mexico and at the World Summit on Sustainable Development held in Johnannesburg later that year.    In Paragraph 42 of the Monterrey Consensus, world leaders reiterated their commitment, stating that “we urge developed countries that have not done so to make concrete efforts towards the target of 0.7 percent of gross national product (GNP) as ODA to developing countries.”    Ours is the first generation in which the world can halve extreme poverty within the 0.7 envelope. In 1975, when the donor world economy was around half its current size, the Millennium Development Goals would have required much more than 1 percent of GNP from the donors. Today, after two and a half decades of sustained economic growth, the Goals are utterly affordable.    Why 0.7% matters for the Millennium Development Goals    The UN Millennium Project's analysis indicates that 0.7% of rich world GNI can provide enough resources to meet Millennium Development Goals, but developed countries must follow through on commitments and begin increasing ODA volumes today. If every developed country set and followed through on a timetable to reach 0.7% by 2015, the world could make dramatic progress in the fight against poverty and start on a path to achieve the Millennium Development Goals and end extreme poverty by 2015.    The UN Millennium Project's costing shows that a comprehensive package to meet the Millennium Development Goals would cost about $75-$150 US per person per year over the period, and that less than half of this would need to be financed by ODA.    To achieve the Goals, aid from industrialized countries should rise to 0.44 percent of the industrialized nations' GNP in 2006 and reach 0.54 percent of GNP by 2015- less than the global target 0.7 percent of GNP reaffirmed by world leaders at the Monterrey conference on financing development in 2002 .    If one includes the other essential investment needs that are not directly related to the Millennium Development Goals, such as protecting global fisheries and managing geo-strategic and humanitarian crises, global aid will need to rise to 0.7 percent. If donor countries reached the 0.7 percent ODA target, they could generate the additional funding that will be needed for developing countries to achieve the Millennium Development Goals.     The core inputs to development—teachers, health centers, roads, wells, medicines, to name a few—are eminently affordable if rich and poor countries alike follow through on their commitments.    Why 0.7% matters for global security    The 0.7 target has been recognized as a vital step towards promoting international and national security and stability. For example, the Report of the Secretary-General's High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges, and Change recommends that countries that aspire to global leadership through permanent membership on the UN Security Council be required to fulfill international commitments to official development assistance, including the 0.7 target.    "The many donor countries which currently fall short of the United Nations 0.7 per cent of gross national product (GNP) for official development assistance (ODA) should establish a timetable for reaching it.    Among developed countries, achieving or making substantial progress towards the internationally agreed level of 0.7 per cent of GNP for ODA should be considered an important criterion of contribution [in considering reform of Security Council membership]."    Commitments to 0.7%    As of June 2005, 16 out of the 22 donor countries have met or agreed to meet the 0.7 target by 2015.    Critically, on 24 May all EU Development Ministers met in Brussels and announced that by 2015, all of the original “EU-15”, Member states will set timetables to meet the 0.7 target by 2015. In addition, the "new" EU countries (the accession countries which joined the EU after 2002) will achieve 0.33% by 2015. So far, only five countries have met or surpassed the 0.7 target:    The UN Millennium Project urges all developed countries to follow through on the Monterrey commitment “to make concrete efforts towards the target of 0.7.” We urge that “concrete efforts” require a specific timetable, and specifically a timetable before 2015, the target date for the Goals.    The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are the world's time-bound and quantified targets for addressing extreme poverty in its many dimensions-income poverty, hunger, disease, lack of adequate shelter, and exclusion-while promoting gender equality, education, and environmental sustainability. They are also basic human rights-the rights of each person on the planet to health, education, shelter, and security.    The world has made significant progress in achieving many of the Goals. Between 1990 and 2002 average overall incomes increased by approximately 21 percent. The number of people in extreme poverty declined by an estimated 130 million 1. Child mortality rates fell from 103 deaths per 1,000 live births a year to 88. Life expectancy rose from 63 years to nearly 65 years. An additional 8 percent of the developing world's people received access to water. And an additional 15 percent acquired access to improved sanitation services.    But progress has been far from uniform across the world-or across the Goals. There are huge disparities across and within countries. Within countries, poverty is greatest for rural areas, though urban poverty is also extensive, growing, and underreported by traditional indicators.    Sub-Saharan Africa is the epicenter of crisis, with continuing food insecurity, a rise of extreme poverty, stunningly high child and maternal mortality, and large numbers of people living in slums, and a widespread shortfall for most of the MDGs. Asia is the region with the fastest progress, but even there hundreds of millions of people remain in extreme poverty, and even fast-growing countries fail to achieve some of the non-income Goals. Other regions have mixed records, notably Latin America, the transition economies, and the Middle East and North Africa, often with slow or no progress on some of the Goals and persistent inequalities undermining progress on others. Visit the related web page
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