State Secretary Sigrun Møgedal

UNDP Poverty Report 2000

Nordic meeting, Oslo, 31 March 2000

Distinguished participants,

Ladies and gentlemen,

Welcome to Norway - and to Oslo. I am very pleased to welcome you to this seminar, which is being hosted by the Nordic Office of the UNDP, on a theme that so clearly puts the focus where it should be when we talk about global development challenges: an urgent call for action rather than more words on the importance of fighting poverty.

We live in times of tremendous progress and breathtaking change. Development processes leading to growth and new opportunities have become increasingly global. International cooperation for the common good has in many ways grown and contributed to these positive trends. New partnerships have emerged. There are new networks and alliances for optimizing knowledge and information for the purpose of development. And more than ever before, there are movements in civil society that manage to link the local and the global, giving a face, heart and feet to local action – and power, credibility and urgency to global advocacy.

Yet, there continues to be a disturbing contrast between the affluence and power of some groups and the vulnerability and marginalization of others. Glaring global inequalities cut across all regions and promote powerlessness and deprivation instead of hope and fulfilment for large groups of people. In a globalized world, poverty has also become globalized. In addition, it is being increasingly feminized. We need to address this situation up-front, and not cover it up. We know a lot about pro-poor policies. But we also know a lot about why they are so hard to implement, both for ourselves and for our partners.

The root causes of poverty are numerous, complex and interlinked. They are related to policies, power relations, systems of government, structures and cultural traits, in the North as well as in the South. There is a web of factors that render people powerless, such as gender discrimination, lack of employment opportunities, inadequate means of livelihood, and lack of access to health care, knowledge and information. These factors are at work within countries as well as in the relations between countries, and are linked to systems and structures of international trade, debt and finance. But the complexity of the poverty problem is no excuse for our shortcomings in addressing it. At least it is no longer an excuse. We must focus instead on what we can do to overcome the barriers that we know are there.

We have set ourselves the ambitious goal of halving the proportion of people living in extreme poverty by the year 2015. But we are still far from reaching this goal. It is an uphill struggle. We are dealing with competing interests at many levels. In addition, decades of progress in reducing child mortality and increasing life expectancy are being eroded by the impact of the AIDS pandemic. Households headed by women and children – often AIDS orphans – are in an especially difficult situation. In the countries that are hardest hit life expectancy has been reduced by as much as 17 years.

And yet today I believe we have much of the knowledge we need to drastically reduce poverty. We certainly have the resources. Perhaps even more notably, we have an unprecedented synergy of intention at the global level. Poverty reduction has become a primary focus, not only for the UNDP, but also for the international community as a whole - including the OECD/DAC, the World Bank and the IMF. There is now also a shared understanding that social inclusion, empowerment and human security must be integral parts of any poverty reduction strategy.

Thus the conclusion should be fairly obvious: What we need now is the will and determination to put our ample resources to work, to translate words into deeds, and to capitalize on our knowledge. This is a call to all development partners. We need to cooperate more, but most of all we need to cooperate better. We must achieve more effective partnerships and reduce the high transaction costs in development cooperation. There is no single prescription – no panacea . But there is a clear way forward. The key elements are national determination to adopt and implement pro-poor policies and accountability among development partners with regard to a framework for pro-poor partnerships.

Nobody is any longer in doubt about the paramount importance of national ownership, and strong political commitment, to which donors can add their support. The challenge is to find mechanisms and modalities for collaboration on this basis which align partners and give them a common agenda, while at the same time allowing the necessary space for diversity so that local solutions can be found and priorities assigned. Basic to this is the development of mutual trust, and arenas for dialogue and mutual accountability – arenas where barriers to pro-poor partnerships can be identified, explored, honestly faced and overcome, and where new alliances between public, private and civil society partners can be nurtured.

At the Social Summit in Copenhagen in 1995, our Heads of State and Government committed themselves to an ambitious agenda for poverty eradication, social integration and productive employment. Given the broad scope and nature of these goals and targets, five years is a short period for measuring results. We also know that the preparatory process for the Special Session is currently facing tremendous challenges in terms of communication and bridging gaps between different interests and agendas. It calls for new creativity in finding North-South alliances which can cut across the the boundaries of negotiating groups.

I believe the UNDP Poverty Report 2000, which is to be presented here, is a very useful contribution in this context, and that it can also serve as a platform for interpretation and dialogue among partners. In a very impressive way it sets out the challenges, identifies the possibilities and constraints and points the way forward in this very complex area.

Let us remind each other that the Special Session is not a new Social Summit. The objectives are:

• to reaffirm commitments made in Copenhagen, and not to renegotiate them;
• to identify progress made and constraints encountered, and lessons learned in the implementation process;
• and to recommend concrete action and initiatives for further implementation of the declaration and programme of action from Copenhagen.

It is important to focus on the link between human development, social development and economic development. An enabling environment, at both the national and the international level, is crucial for social development. Good governance and respect for all human rights are fundamental elements of such an environment, and are a necessary basis for effective mechanisms in international cooperation. These considerations, which apply to both sides of the table, have guided the Norwegian preparatory process.

A top priority for Norway has been to promote measures that will achieve universal access to basic social services. In this respect the 20/20 initiative has been and remains an important advocacy tool, and has pointed the way for effective modes of cooperation and mutual accountability. We are glad to see how the intentions behind the 20/20 initiative are being reinforced by the new broad collaborative frameworks, such as the Comprehensive Development Framework and the Poverty Reduction Strategies. In this perspective, we affirm the importance of the work that has already been done by many countries on national Poverty Reduction Strategies as a follow up to the Copenhagen Summit. We believe that such efforts can serve to establish ownership and build the necessary bridges in relation to the new mechanisms currently being discussed.

Norway has identified a set of key issues to which we are giving high priority at the Special Session in June. The most important of these are:

• First and foremost: HIV/AIDS. We have to put it up front. We must stop regarding it as merely a problem for the health sector and acknowledge that it is a threat to development and poverty reduction. Poverty analysis and action must be appropriately and effectively linked to analysis and action on HIV/AIDS.

• Secondly, promoting the rights of people with disabilities and opportunities for them to participate fully and actively in society is an issue we continue to pursue - as we did during the Social Summit. This is a key objective in our efforts to promote an inclusive society.

• Thirdly, the goal of full employment requires action at many levels. The potential for job creation is often greatest in small and medium-sized enterprises, especially in the informal sector. At the same time, governments must ensure that the basic rights and interests of workers are safeguarded.

• Fourthly, the number of children being exploited through child labour seems to be on the increase. Norway welcomes the growing international attention to this problem. Urgent action is needed, both at the national and at the international level. Access to education is a key factor. An important priority now is to get governments to ratify and implement the new ILO Convention 182 on the worst forms of child labour. Norway is currently in the process of ratifying this convention.

• Fifthly and finally, Norway will work to ensure that gender equality and respect for all human rights are explicit objectives in the future implementation of all the 10 commitments from the Social Summit in Copenhagen.

I wish you every success in your discussions. We look forward to a briefing from our colleagues on the insights that will emerge from the seminar.

Thank you for your attention.