OSLO – The fourth Annual Bank Conference on Development Economics in Europe opened on June 24 and continued here today. Over 300 development researchers from 44 countries, predominantly from Europe and the developing world, continued their second day of discussions under the heading of " Towards Pro-Poor Policies".

In one of the conference’s most well attended break-out workshops, participants discussed the Millennium Development Goals and whether they are feasable and affordable. Jeffrey Sachs, Harvard University, said that " The iron lock of abolute poverty can be broken, but it requires a conscious choice not to tolerate absolute poverty." However, the participants also pointed to the fact that we will not reach the Millenium Development Goals automatically, but that financial and technical resources need to be forthcoming. Many of the very poorest countries are still heading in the wrong direction, they concluded.

In a workshop on Education for All, Priscila Kambaine from the Tanzania Teacher Service Commission, addressed the concrete challenges that Tanzania faces in trying to reach the Millenium Development Goal of achieving universal primary education by the year 2015. She said that there are currently some 113 million children without access to primary education, and the role of teachers in the classroom and in society needs to be reassessed in order to get children into school. " The current levels of national education budgets cannot adequately pay for such services, and should be increased much. Deliberate efforts need to be made to give teachers better conditions of service and working environment– including construction of proper classrooms and teachers’ houses", she said.

In another debate between researchers, Mushtaq Khan from London’s School of Oriental and African Studies pointed at State Failure in Developing Countries and Strategies of Institutional Reform as a vital development challenge. He stressed

the need for a significant shift in the focus of institutional reform, as well as identifying the importance of political reorganization in poorly performing countries.

In the morning session, Jagdish Bhagwati from Colombia University kicked off the discussion with an intervention on the topic of migration. Andres Solimano from the United Nations, spoke about different reasons why people migrate, saying that the unequal world distribution of science and technology resources are some examples. He required action at several fronts, pointing at the current imbalance between developed and developing countries.

" If migration is controlled and limited, the brain drain effect can be positive", argued Alessandra Venturini, University of Torino, concluding that migrants only go back home if they think they can get a better job and enjoy a better life style. Ndioro Ndiaye, International Organization for Migration, also concluded that " while human capital flows are indeed a global problem that requires the commitment and determination of all countries, industrialized and nonindustrialized alike, it is not necessarily a bad thing".

The ABCDE-Europe 2002 conference closes tomorrow, Wednesday, June 26. http://www.worldbank.org/abcde-europe