By Xinhua
United Nations : Developing countries at a UN special debate Wednesday called on industrialized countries to honour their commitments by providing more resources to help achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
Joanne Massiah, agriculture minister of Antigua and Barbuda’s, made the appeal on behalf of the Group of 77 and China, a bloc of 130 developing nations, as he addressed the thematic debate on development at the UN General Assembly.
He said world leaders had agreed in Monterrey, 2002, that sustained reform by developing countries would be matched by direct support from the developed countries in the form of aid, trade, debt relief and investment.
“Despite the progress made by developing countries, commitments to increase the provision of resources have not been fulfilled,” Massiah said.
“There is a commitment to collaborate on international resource and mobilization, but the international financial environment is still not transparent, stable or predictable,” he said.
Stressing the “indispensable” role of Official Development Assistance (ODA) in helping achieve the MDGs, he said that the decline of ODA in 2007 and heavy reliance on debt cancellation are of “serious concern”.
Citing the “lack of progress” on the eighth MDG – Global Partnership for Development, he called for an intergovernmental agreement to develop a monitoring mechanism to track and promote implementation of goals and commitments by all stakeholders.
“Developed countries must be evaluated not only in their implementation of the Monterrey Consensus … but also in the progress made on MDG 8, which unfortunately, holds no clear benchmarks to monitor its implementation,” he said.
“Therefore, the Group calls on the UN and its relevant bodies to contribute to the elaboration of a comprehensive matrix of the commitments made under MDG 8 and specific benchmarks to facilitate monitoring of its implementation,” he added.
The thematic debate, titled “Recognizing the achievements, addressing the challenges and getting back on track to achieve the MDGs by 2015”, was convened by General Assembly President Srgjan Kerim with an aim to review the progress made so far to achieve the MDGs and to identify the challenges as well as the methods to address them.