Despite efforts to reduce the burden of excessive debt, many lowincome countries are still using a substantial portion of their resources to pay interest and repay the capital of earlier borrowing. According to the UNDP, 59 low-income developing countries (with per capita incomes of US$755 or less) paid out an average of 4.4 per cent of their GDP in debt service in 2000
compared with aid disbursements received equivalent to 2.1 per cent of GDP.
Although debt service payments for the poorest countries within this group are beginning to fall as the relief available under the HIPC initiative starts to come through, a further enhancement of international arrangements to reduce and write off debt is warranted. This would release resources for investments in the physical and social infrastructure needed for growth.
Additional aid is therefore essential to reduce the burden of existing debts, increase flows of finance for investment and supplement government expenditure on key services for poverty reduction. This is a matter of political will. For example, reducing the US$311 billion OECD countries paid to support their agricultural industry in 2001 could release resources for development assistance. Industrial countries’ subsidies to agriculture were nearly six times the total ODA of US$52.3 billion to all developing countries by these countries in 2001.
The World Bank has estimated that between US$40 and 60 billion of increased financial assistance is needed each year until 2015 to enable all countries to reach the targets set by the MDGs.The promise made by donors at the International Conference on Financing for Development in Monterrey in 2002 to raise ODA by $12 billion each year over the next three years is only a beginning. Proposals for a new international investment finance facility, a resumption of the issuance of IMF Special Drawing Rights and improved tax cooperation to reduce avoidance and evasion deserve serious consideration.
The speed, predictability and administrative efficiency of its delivery are as important as the volume of aid. Despite promises by donors to shift away from a multitude of relatively small projects and programmes to longer-term commitments to broad government programmes, the transaction costs placed on recipient country government services in meeting donors’ conditions remain onerous.
The aid relationship continues to be unbalanced, compromising the central objective of ensuring that poverty reduction strategies are nationally owned. Since the principle of public accountability for public funds should be retained, donors and governments could consider including the parliaments of recipient and donor countries in the process of monitoring aid expenditures.
This would also encourage participation and increased interparliamentary cooperation to promote the democratic accountability of all governments involved in the aid relationship.
Reducing poverty in most countries requires both sustainable growth and also redistribution. Getting the policy mix right to achieve and sustain equitable growth is most likely where development strategies have a high degree of support across social groups. This is necessary not only to avoid destabilization as a result of irreconcilable claims, but also to generate confidence that action by different groups, including government, will be matched by others. This is particularly important for policies to increase the availability of decent work opportunities. Building trust in the social institutions, both public and private, needed to enable poor people to earn their way out of poverty is a vital investment. The absence of social cohesion is a severe brake on development and in extreme circumstances can undermine the capacity of States to govern.
On numerous occasions, including at the World Summit for Social Development in Copenhagen in 1995, the international community has agreed that social security is a basic human right and a fundamental means for creating social cohesion, thereby helping to ensure social peace and social inclusion.
As mentioned in Chapter 3, the 89th Session of the International Labour Conference in 2001 committed the ILO to a major new campaign to improve and extend social security coverage to all those in need of such protection.
Developing countries, especially those where poverty is widespread, need to extend systems of social security that address the vulnerabilities that trap families and communities in cycles of deprivation. The importance of access to primary and secondary education and primary health care has been recognized by many developing countries. For a poor family, securing a basic income, basic health care and education for the children is a foundation for participating productively in society and the economy. Secure families build secure communities and stable societies.
For most people living in poverty, however, these basic securities are not even a dream. Their daily reality is a world of insecurity with all the consequences of crime, substance abuse, and social dislocation that breed violence, ethnic and religious bigotry, and political extremism. As with many aspects of the development agenda, extending social protection requires action at the national level within a supportive international context. However, there is a danger that the pressures of competition for internationally mobile finance and on world trade markets will reduce the scope for extending social protection at a time when it is most needed. If they are to extend the triangle of income, health and education security, low-income developing country governments need in turn the security of a regular, predictable flow of development assistance to their budgets for social expenditure.
As a contribution to new thinking about global solidarity, the ILO is currently piloting an approach to supporting the extension of social security through a Global Social Trust. The idea is to request people in richer countries to commit to a regular monthly transfer of about 5 euros (or about 0.2 per cent of average monthly incomes) to a Global Social Trust based on a network of national social trusts supported by the ILO and other interested parties. These funds would then be invested to kick-start basic social protection schemes launched primarily in least developed countries, which would provide concrete benefits for a defined period until these initiatives became self-supporting.
To learn more about this author, visit International Labour Organization's Website.
Like this article? Share it with your friends
 |
Related Businesses - Evan Elite Authors |
|
Kim Castle
With nearly two decades in the advertising and design business, with clients like Domino's Pizza, General Motors, Direct TV, Pedigree, Wolfgang Puck, Higher Octave Music, Hollywood Celebrity Products, Disney, and Paramount, as well as thousands of entrepreneurs around the world define, structure, communicate, and position their business for greater profits, BrandU(R) co-creators Kim Castle and W. Vito Montone discovered that entrepreneurs could experience the same power that big brands command for a fraction of the cost with the world's only process-based results-drive Integral approach to business creation.
BrandU(R) is helping entrepreneurs grow with the power of extreme clarity from idea...to brand...to market(TM) and helping one million entrepreneurs become successful and whole so that they can make a difference in the world. Are you one of them?
If you want to experience clarity all the way to the bank(TM), get started now at http://www.brandu.com. - Visit Kim Castle's Website |
|
Accessible Business Consultants
Dave Turkin, President, of Accessible Business Consultants is a full service business consultant that has over 32 years of experience working with small-medium size businesses. Dave has designed and implemented numerous business and marketing plans, designed internal programs for accounting and operational procedures. He has analyzed businesses and prepared strategic plans setting budgets for growth, expansion and business restructuring.
He currently sits on the Board of Directors of various corporations as an advisor. For many years he has been the Business Coach to many executives offering advice and guidance from old and established companies as well as new companies just getting started.
Dave has the ability to analyze a business quickly and get a strong indication as to the necessary steps to improve operations, productivity and profitability. - Visit Accessible Business Consultants's Website |
|
Dave Kurlan
Dave Kurlan is the founder and CEO of Objective Management Group, Inc., the industry leader in sales assessments and sales force evaluations, and the CEO of David Kurlan & Associates, Inc., a consulting firm specializing in sales force development.
Dave has been a top rated speaker at Inc. Magazine's Conference on Growing the Company, the Sales & Marketing Management Conference and the Gazelles Sales & Marketing Summit.
He has been featured on radio and TV, including World Business Review with General Norman Schwarzkopf, in Inc. Magazine, Selling Power Magazine, Sales & Marketing Management Magazine and Incentive Magazine.
He is the author of Mindless Selling and Baseline Selling – How to Become a Sales Superstar by Using What You Already Know about the Game of Baseball.
He created and wrote STAR, a proprietary recruiting process for hiring great salespeople, and he writes Understanding the Sales Force, a popular business Blog and is a contributing author to The Death of 20th Century Selling and 101 Great Ways to Improve Your Life, Volume 2. - Visit Dave Kurlan's Website |
|
Dianne Crampton
Dianne Crampton is an Executive Leadership Coach and Team Building Consultant and creator of the TIGERS team development model. For the past twenty years she has helped leaders and teams achieve goals with high levels of collaboration and teamwork.
Crampton is a published author. Her contribution to Working Together: Diversity As Opportunity was endorsed by Stephen Covey. She has written for trade magazines. Merrill Lynch nominated her business for Inc. Magazine’s regional small business and entrepreneurial awards. Her work with Native Americans was recognized at a United Nations sponsored conference in 1994.
The TIGERS model passed two rigorous validation studies in 1992 and 1994. The TIGERS Survey is able to measure and track team development over time.
Dianne is also the creator and distributor of the TIGERS Team Wheel game. This game helps groups identify behaviors that build collaborative groups and behaviors that cause conflict, morale problems, production failures, and misunderstandings.
For more information, or to subscribe to TigerTracks, a free monthly leadership and team newsletter go to http://www.corevalues.com - Visit Dianne Crampton's Website |
|
The Evan Elite Authors program is currently in beta phase. For details please contact us.
|
|
![[Get Copyright Permissions]](http://license.icopyright.net/images/icopy-w.gif){kind=small}
