Agence France Presse | June 11, 2003
South Africa's President Thabo Mbeki on Wednesday urged the international community and rich countries to honour pledges made in recent years to curb world poverty.
Mbeki told the 176 member states of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) that they were under "obligation to fully implement critical decisions" taken at the UN Millennium summit in New York in 2000, the Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development and the World Trade Organisation's ministerial conference in Doha, Qatar in 2001.
"We have a duty to ourselves to ensure that the resources are available to achieve the objectives that humanity set itself at these historic gatherings," he said in a speech to delegates at the ILO's annual conference. Mbeki later told journalists there was a need "to make movement, to get movement" on tackling poverty in developing countries.
"There is clearly a big disaster boiling away everywhere in the world," Mbeki warned, noting "the stark contrast" between rich and poor.
"It's a kind of act of provocation to those who are poor," he added.
South Africa's president also criticised financial conditions imposed on developing countries during the 1990s in return for aid or debt relief.
Those conditions -- including deregulation, trade liberalisation and "sound" economic policies -- were at odds with the way the European Union gave assistance to its own poorer regions, he noted.
Poor countries "had to make themselves as beautiful and alluring as the best mythical maiden, so that they attract the rich suitors with investment funds, who populate the global capital markets," Mbeki said.
Yet a country like Britain "quite correctly" received 16.6 billion euros (19.4 billion dollars) from the EU in regional aid "to address development challenges that are relatively minor compared to those confronting the developing world".
"In the instance of the United Kingdom, as with other relevant regions within the EU, no call is made that these regions should beautify themselves for the benefit of the market, and depend on this market for the resources to pull them out of their relative backwardness," Mbeki added.
That kind of an approach should be taken at an international level with assistance to tackle social challenges in poor countries.
Mbeki said a ministerial meeting of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) at Cancun, Mexico in September would be an opportunity to conclude a deal on crucial trade issues.
Developing countries and industrialised states are still deadlocked in talks on liberalising agricultural markets or giving poor countries access to cheaper medicines to tackle major diseases.
South Africa, Brazil and India -- which have frequently played a leading role in pressing developing countries' economic demands -- are aiming to formalise cooperation on the global stage, following a meeting of their foreign ministers in Brasilia last week, according to Mbeki.Agence France Presse:
