Minister of International Development Hilde. F. Johnson (Christian Democrat)
Conference on Global Justice
University of Oslo
11. september 2003

Introduction on Global Justice

Let me start by quoting a man from Ghana, testifying about an everyday incident: "Take the death of this small boy this morning. The boy died of measles. We all know that he could have been cured at the hospital. But the parents had no money and so the boy died a slow and painful death – not of measles but of poverty."

Poverty is the scourge of our time. It means human suffering, untimely deaths and disease. It implies an enormous waste of human lives – a cost we cannot accept in the 21st century.

Who are we - if we don’t do anything to change the map of global poverty?

Does it suffice to say that I pay my share in taxes – some of my money goes to development aid - I do my part? With your permission I will spend a few minutes to answer this question - but if you wish I could make it brief; the answer is no.

To me, it is intuitively unacceptable not to mobilise our political, financial and technological skills to combat poverty. To fight global injustice. Some might do this out of a motivation of enlightened self-interest – in a world without walls. My approach is different. Intuition has cultural roots – and when I reflect on my convictions – it should be said that my intuition is rooted in christian/humanistic culture. The human value of the individual is one and undivided; all people are part of the unique creation.

My human dignity is violated if I threaten yours – or refuse to oppose those who do. Even if you are a small boy in Ghana, and not my neighbour. We have but one world – and one measure of the value of human dignity. Extreme poverty is a violation of human dignity.

My conviction is not only based on intuition – it is based on an understanding of rights – human rights. There is much debate about the relevance and importance of the different categories of human rights. In my opinion, we should not engage in a discussion about whether political and civil rights take precedence or not over civil and political rights. All human rights are interrelated and interdependent. No set of rights stands above the other. They are mutually reinforcing. Art. 25 of the universal declaration of human rights is clear – everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and wellbeing of herself and her family.

Extreme poverty is a violation of rights – usually a violation of a number of rights at the same time - and not the least – in too many incidents – to the right to life itself. Development is also a question of rights – development is also a process towards the realisation of rights. Being it social and economic rights – or political and civil rights.

If a child is born into circumstances which are such that she has very slim chances of being properly fed, getting basic health care, getting an education; if the circumstances are such that hunger will be her feed, it is our responsibility, to do something about it - if we can.

And we can. We are therefore obliged to give a careful scrutiny about what kind of measures are useful and necessary in order to combat poverty. And we should give scrutiny to the issue of whether our behaviour affects poverty in a positive - or in a negative way.

Let me try to give you my understanding of the challenges ahead – and an outline of where I understand the international consensus is heading.

The UN millennium development goals are the roadmap we use in the fight against poverty. You will remember that the UN millennium goals were adopted unanimously by heads of states and governments at the UN general assembly at the turn of the millennium. The millennium goals constitute a concrete agenda for the fight against global poverty until 2015. Through the millennium development goals we are committed to halve the proportion of people living in extreme poverty and halve the occurrence of hunger, to halt the spread of HIV/AIDS, to reduce by half child mortality and to secure all girls and boys primary education – by 2015. There are 7 concrete goals with the deadline 2015. And they are ambitious. They are ambitious regardless of useful disagreement over calculation and methodology.

There is no mentioning in the 7 concrete goals where the primary responsibility to reach the goals lie – no methodology so to speak. But in goal 8 the expression of partnership between the developing and the developed countries is clearly stated. Here we have - and I quote - "a commitment to good governance, development and poverty reduction—nationally and internationally."

Our common roadmap for the fight against poverty entails an explicit acknowledgement of the need to focus on the international framework conditions – as well as on the policies conducted by each individual state.

For most developing countries it is commonly understood that international framework conditions influence the prospects for growth at least as much/more/ than the flow of international development aid. Trade is paramount. But the difficulties developing nations have in entering the markets that matter with the goods they can produce are well known. Protectionism in rich countries costs developing countries between USD 100-150 billion per year, at least twice the amount they receive through development assistance. Rich countries spend many times more on subsidies to their own farmers than on development aid. If we allow ourselves to be flippant about a serious matter for a second – it is 2 ^2 times more lucrative to be a cow in Europe than to be a farmer in Africa. Subsidies and exports support in rich countries depress incomes in rural areas in poor countries.

"The Doha (trade) negotiations are a central pillar of the global strategy to achieve the Millennium Development Goals: a strategy to reduce poverty by giving poor people the opportunity to help themselves.

We need a decisive break with trade policies that hurt economic development. Donors cannot provide aid to create development opportunities with one hand and then use trade restrictions to take these opportunities away with the other- and expect that their development dollars will be effective." These past two paragraphs are taken from a communiqué given by Horst Köhler, Jim Wolfensohn and Donald J. Johnston in the wake of the Cancun meeting. The aim of the communiqué is to persuade governments to agree to reform.

Reform in international framework conditions is necessary. Reform of official development aid is necessary – particularly for the poorest countries. It is normally assumed that we need to double OECD development aid in order to arrive at poverty reduction on a level prescribed by the millennium goals. Both US and the EU countries have promised increased funds – we are steering toward a 30% increase in 2004. We are on our way – but lagging behind – we are far from the goal of 0,7% of GNI we adopted decades ago. We need more development aid – and we need better development aid – we are talking about development aid reform – a topic I will not develop further here today.

Trade, debt and development aid – these are areas in which OECD-countries need to do more. But, it is my firm conviction that the governance-issue must be included at the national level as well. "Good governance is perhaps the single most important factor in eradicating poverty and promoting development" - this is a much-used quote of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. Developing countries need to put their own house in order, improve their policies and governance. Reforms are needed. Frankly speaking, I think the governance-issue on the national level is an area where we on our side for too long have been reluctant to speak up.

But good governance is not only an issue of stable macro-economic policies. Good governance must include anti-corruption policies, democracy building and the respect for human rights. Poverty reduction and sustainable development is the aim.

When poor people are systematically discriminated against, through laws, lawlessness and a fence of rich-people privileges, they have little opportunities to make use even of their limited resources.

A rights based understanding of the problem of poverty is important – also on the national level.

Where lies the responsibility to eradicate global poverty? Among international decision-makers, there has been a convergence of opinion between those who have advocated that the way out of poverty is to be found solely in the international framework conditions – and those who pointed to illjudged national policies as the roots of poverty. It is essential to focus on both.

Are there links between the nature of national governments and the international society?

Yes, there are, there has always been, several.

One problematic link between the two levels is corruption. Corruption comes in many shapes and forms – from the underpaid police who cannot feed his family unless he takes payment for services rendered, to the large scale setting aside of the nation’s resources for private or semi-private interests. For all cases the bottom-line is the same – corruption is steeling from the poor. There is a fine line, or should we say continuum, from corruption to the usurpation of national resources for the conduct of wars. Recent studies, amongst others by the World Bank, point to the relationship between abundance of natural resources and competition over their control on the one hand, and internal strife and conflict on the other.

Is this merely an issue to be addressed by developing countries themselves?

No longer – at least not only. We have, albeit reluctantly, started to say aloud that when we deal with corruption on a large scale, there is more often than not an agent, directly or indirectly, from a developed nation on one side of the equation.

And, perhaps most importantly, the issue of corruption is being perceived as a more fundamental ill of a political as well as economic nature. There is an interest in the issue of how the possibilities for private enrichment through politics shape decisionmaking. The days when private as well as state owned companies from OECD-countries could deduct bribes as expenses in their balance sheet are over. But the problem has not evaporated – and more determined action is needed.

There are several initiatives internationally – I would like to mention The Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative". Based on the declaration by the G-8 countries, and following an initiative by Tony Blair, it focuses on extractive industries and the importance for transparency in finance flows from natural resources. Reporting from the industries – as well as from the host countries, about financial flows resulting from extractive industries, is aimed at greater transparency.

There is a growing awareness that as buyers or lenders we should not be totally indifferent to the effects of money flows originating from us.

Transparency is not a new issue. The new situation is - in my opinion – that these issues land at the table of governments and international development institutions and are seen as a bona fide development challenges. Too little has been done – but I sense a change of hearts. I would not be totally surprised if the current interest in transparency and legitimate use of resources would lead this work into other realms of international exchange as well.

Last march, Centre for Global Development, a research institute based in Washington, launched the "Commitment to Development Index". It attempts to index OECD-countries according to a number of specific policy criteria, with the aim of measuring the comprehensive impact of the given state’s policies towards poor countries. The key word here is coherence, coherence in all aspects of policies with an effect on poor countries.

OECD-countries need to be monitored on their comprehensive policy towards poor countries.

But positive coherence is extremely difficult to achieve. It takes more than average courage for a government to set aside perceived, concrete material interests of voters in order to implement policies which may benefit the global poor; who live in distant lands, and who may see the benefit very slowly (although the 0-sum image is – on an aggregate level - wrong). Poor people in Africa do not vote in OECD-country general elections.

International cooperation is important in order to nudge each other forwards. International agreements are necessary in order to avoid freeriders and underbidding. And poor countries need sponsors – lobbyists. They have too few friends– and sometimes the wrong kind.

Which leads me to the reason why I wanted to come here today. We need change. But I am extremely concerned that unless our general awareness about global issues becomes stronger, unless the public debate about poverty becomes more pervasive, and more sophisticated, we have only a small chance of bringing about change on a level sufficient to combat global poverty. And if we for now focus on ourselves - in complex democracies, consensus on a certain level is needed if change is to be implemented. My question to you is - is it conceivable that the research community could be more visible in the work to combat global poverty?

I wish that you understand my question also as an expression of gratitude towards the University and the The Ethics Programme & The Norwegian Ethics Network. This conference is important - the issues you raise are crucial. We need insight, we need arguments, we need debate. But we also need your engagement in public debate.

Why does global extreme poverty persist? I often ask myself this naïve question - when we can put a man on the moon – why can we not eradicate poverty? The answer is – we can. We can, but we must do more, we must want more. We need to build a resolve to act on a global level. Towards global justice.

I wish you a fruitful and interesting conference and look forward to hearing more from you all.

Thank you.