Industrial, developing countries must act rapidly to reduce world poverty significantly by 2015

• Pages: 209-210

Page 209

World poverty can be significantly decreased by 2015 if developing and industrial countries implement their commitments to attack its root causes, according to a report released on June 26. The report, entitled A Better World for All, was prepared jointly by the United Nations (UN), the World Bank, the IMF, and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

The report was released in Geneva by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan on the opening day of the UN special session on social development, where finding strategies to fight poverty was set as a priority. The same day, the report was also presented at the OECD 2000 forum in Paris by Sally Shelton-Colby, OECD Deputy Secretary-General, and Louise Frechette, UN Deputy Secretary-General.

Following are edited excerpts of the joint press release issued by the four organizations on June 26 (the full text is available as IMF Press Release No. 00/37 and may be found on the IMF's website, www.imf.org).

The report urges developing and industrial countries to work to foster sustainable growth that favors the poor and provide more resources for health, education, gender equality, and environmentally sustainable development worldwide.

The report marks the first time these four international organizations have jointly assessed progress toward poverty-reductionPage 210 goals and outlined a common vision for the way forward.

The report focuses on seven interrelated development goals set during world conferences in the 1990s.

These goals, if achieved in the next 15 years, will improve the lives of millions of people. The seven goals are halving the proportion of people living on less than $1 a day; enrolling all children in primary school; empowering women by eliminating gender disparities in education; reducing infant and child mortality rates; reducing maternal mortality ratios; promoting access to reproductive health services; and promoting environmentally sustainable development.

Not only is progress important on each goal individually, the report says, but all goals must be met collectively to truly combat the many causes of poverty. Success on one or two will not produce a sufficient impact.

“During the 1990s, world conferences set major goals for economic and social development,” Secretary-General Annan said. “All countries, developed and developing alike, signed on to this agenda, often at the highest political level. Since then, people have...