Helen Clark spent the weekend in London attending the 2008 Progressive Governance Conference. While there, she put her name to a communique calling for immediate action on the UN Millenium Development Goals:
Leaders who gathered for a progressive governance roundtable in Watford, London on Saturday have called for immediate global action to put the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) at the forefront of international agenda.So, does this mean we'll finally see that timetable for how New Zealand plans to meet its commitment under the MDG to increase aid to 0.7% of GNI? Somehow, I think not.They maintained that it was only by recognizing that this was truly an emergency that concerted global action could be brought about.
The MDGs, which range from halving extreme poverty, spread of HIV/AIDS and providing universal primary education, all by the target date of 2015, form a blueprint agreed to by all countries and development institutions. The about 20 leaders, in a communiqué, noted with concern that despite pledges to spare no effort at achieving these goals and the unprecedented global wealth, global inequalities had become more acute with some 2.5 billion people still living on less than two dollars a day, while many countries were significantly behind the goals for 2015 in health and child education.
Meanwhile, here's a graph of our twisted priorities around aid, from one of the PGC papers (David Held: Global challenges: accountability and effectiveness):
That's right - we spend twice as much on makeup as we do on aid. It makes you realise how little the rich world values the lives of the poor.