| With just weeks to go
before an expected General Election, election fever
has taken hold in the UK. This has meant a heightened
focus on the key election battleground of recent UK
General Elections: health, education and other key domestic
public services. High levels of economic growth, low
inflation and interest rates, falling hospital waiting
lists and improving school results suggest that the
government’s approach of promoting economic efficiency
alongside social justice has, to a large extent, paid
off.
The chances are that by summer 2005, the Labour government
will be experiencing an historic third term. Yet admirable
though its domestic achievements are in the UK, its
record in promoting economic development and social
justice in some of the poorest countries in the world
is, some would say, even better.
Working closely with the Department for International
Development (established in 1997) Chancellor of the
Exchequer Gordon Brown has transformed the debate in
the UK on the importance of international development.
The Chancellor is on record as saying “when some
are poor, all are impoverished” and his recent
actions and achievements in this area are now substantial.
In 1997 when the Labour Government came to power,
just one country was going to receive debt relief. Today
27 countries are benefiting, with $70m of unpayable
debt being written off, with 37 countries now potentially
eligible for debt relief. In human terms, debt relief
has meant that in Uganda, four million more children
now go to primary school; with debt relief in Tanzania,
31,000 new classrooms have been built and 18,000 new
teachers recruited; and with debt relief in Mozambique,
half a million children are now being vaccinated against
tetanus, whooping cough and diphtheria. However, the
scale of poverty, hunger and disease in the word’s
poorest countries suggest that a great deal more needs
to be done. Evidence shows that in households suffering
extreme poverty, life expectancy is often around half
that in the high-income world, 40 years instead of 80.
Of every 1000 children born in developing countries,
more than 100 die before their fifth birthday, compared
with fewer than 10 in the high-income world.
It is easy to see the social and moral case for reversing
these trends and enabling poor countries to develop
their health and education systems. But as President
George W Bush has acknowledged, tackling these problems
is vital to international and national security and
stability. And in drawing up its plans to deal with
these challenges in the future, the UK government has
drawn its inspiration from the past and has set out
a vision for a new Marshall Plan, based on the plan
put forward in 1947 by Secretary of State George C Marshall.
This is a key year for the UK government’s international
development ambitions. The launch of the Make Poverty
History campaign will help provide the necessary momentum
before the UK hosts the G8 Summit in July 2005. Five
years after world leaders agreed the Millennium Development
Goals to halve the proportion of those living in poverty
by 2015, the UN summit in September will surprise no
one when it finds that the world, on current progress,
has no chance of achieving these goals. So the call
for a new Marshall Plan is timely.
At its heart are three essential elements: first,
the historic step of delivering full debt relief for
the world’s debtburdened countries; second, to
deliver the first world trade round in history that
benefits the poorest countries and ensures they have
the capacity to benefit from new trade; and, an international
finance facility (IFF) to double aid from $50bn to $100bn.
The IFF proposal is perhaps the most crucial element
of the Chancellor’s Plan. It recognises that,
despite the progress made in recent years in securing
debt relief for many countries, traditional funding
models will be unable to reach the scale of resources
needed to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
The IFF, therefore, offers a temporary financing mechanism
to provide an additional $50bn a year in development
assistance between now and 2015, and would work by “frontloading”
donor commitments by leveraging additional money from
the international capital markets by issuing bonds.
The IFF not only has the potential to create the scale
of funding necessary to make the MDGs feasible, it would
provide a mechanism to invest in developing countries
now, to prevent problems later. However, if its ambitions
are to be realised, the IFF will need the backing of
the G7.
The Labour Government
could be heading for an historic third term in power
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The original Marshall Plan not only made possible the
reconstruction of Europe, but the renewal of world trade
and generation of prosperity for both Europe and America.
The scale of today’s development challenges call,
if in a different world, for a similar shared response:
comprehensive, inclusive, and an assault on the underlying
causes of poverty.
The scale of today’s development challenges
also means that a new consensus between the richest
countries will be needed to tackle the problems of the
poorest. Sustaining such a plan will require more than
just a set of policies and programmes agreed by the
developed world.
A progressive consensus, based on a set of progressive
views and values embraced by the people across the world,
will be needed to cement a new deal between the richest
and poorest countries of the world.
We have the opportunity in the coming decade to cut
world poverty by half. Tens of millions of lives can
be saved. The practical solutions exist. The political
framework is established. And for the first time, the
cost is affordable. All that is needed is action.
In the words of a US President: “the history
of free peoples is never written by chance but by choice
– that is by our own actions that people of compassion
and goodwill can and do change the world for good”.
Wilf Stevenson is the Director of the
Smith Institute. The Smith Institute is an independent
think-tank that has been set up to undertake research
and education in issues that flow from the changing
relationship between social values and economic imperatives.
For further information, visit: Website:
www.smith-institute.org.uk
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