Launch of MDG Africa Steering Group

United Nations Secretary-General’s remarks after launching
the MDG Africa Steering Group, with
World Bank President Robert Zoellick,
African Union Commissioner for Economic Affairs Maxwell Mkwezalamba,
European Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid Louis Michel,
and IMF Deputy Managing Director Murilo Portugal
[unofficial transcript] 
posted by the United Nations 
New York, 14 September 2007

Secretary-General:  Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. It is a great pleasure to meet with you, with my distinguished colleagues of the members of the MDG African Steering Group.

This morning we had a very good meeting, and I have just concluded the inaugural MDG Africa Steering Group.

It was an unprecedented meeting, in terms of demonstrating and reconfirming our strong commitment to fully realize the targets of the Millennium Development Goals by 2015.

I am grateful for the participation of all the distinguished participants from the World Bank, the IMF, the African Union, the European Commission and the African Development Bank and the Islamic Development Banks.

Those two Presidents have joined through video links [[Mr. Donald Kaberuka, President of the African Development Bank, and Mr. Ahmad Mohamed Ali Al-Madani, President of the Islamic Development Bank.]

The Deputy Secretary-General [Asha Rose Migiro] and Kemal Dervis, the UNDP Administrator, participated in his capacity as UN Development Group Chair.

We focused on three areas.  First of all, we tried to identify effective mechanisms to help these Millennium Development Goals reach and help African countries, and also to have better ways, more systematic ways, to increase aid in a more predictable way, so that African countries can plan and implement their development plans more in a sustainable and long term basis.

We also agreed that among us we will strengthen our collaborative and cooperative works to expedite the process of these MDG goals.  We are concerned that many African countries are off track, particularly for the countries in sub Saharan regions.  That is the only region in the world where not even a single country is on track.  We must help those countries so that they can join and get on track.  We need to have balanced development by the time we reach 2015.  There was a very important point raised by the African Development Bank President, and agreed by all of us, including the World Bank and everybody, that in order to strengthen the multiplied effect of the MDG’s realization, the private sector’s participation is very essential and important, and this will be discussed at the working group meeting next week.

The DSG will chair on September 20th a working group meeting which will continue and we agreed that we will meet again, somewhere in Africa, in four to six months time, to continue our work on this matter.

With these brief remarks, I would like to give the floor to Mr. Bob Zoellick, President of the World Bank, and everybody will make initial statements.  Thank you very much.

Mr. Zoellick:  Thank you very much.  I want to start by thanking the Secretary-General for inviting me.  I think this is an excellent initiative.  It is certainly a timely one.  And I wanted to come up personally to emphasize my support for this push.  As the Secretary-General said, the progress toward the Millennium Development Goals in sub-Saharan Africa has been very, very modest.  We of course recognize that Africa is a continent of great diversity, and so the actions that we are trying to mobilize today have to be customized, they have to be designed to make sure there is national ownership, they have to be based on country plans, and they have to be rigorous in focusing on results.

In particular, if you survey the continent, you have some countries that have been quite successful; there are some great opportunities.  There is about a third of the population, about 17 countries, that have actually averaged about five and a half percent growth over the past ten years.  For those countries, the key is to try to build the resources form multilateral institutions, as well as member governments to help them succeed.  There is about another third of the population, a little less, in about eight countries that have benefited enormously from oil revenues.  For them it’s a question of how they deploy those revenues, and so the focus will be on good governance practices, transparency and capacity-building.  Then there is about another third that have suffered because of the challenges of post-conflict environments or fragile states.  And they’ll need special types of support.  But if you look at a country like Mozambique, one can see very clearly that with the right   leadership, the right programmes, the right support, you can really be quite successful as Mozambique has been.

So, as the Secretary-General suggested, the working group will focus on some particular items.  At the World Bank, we have been looking at the particular benefits of agricultural productivity, and our development report this year will focus on the possibilities for increasing productivity in small-scale agriculture.  Some of our colleagues mentioned the important connection with the trade issue, and the focus on aid-for-trade.

In some countries where the growth agenda is offering potential, it is a question of building the energy and infrastructure connections.  But as the Secretary-General said, in addition to trying to create the enabling environment for the private sector, we need to focus on the assistance that was pledged at Gleneagles and others, and make sure that all of us working with the countries in Africa demonstrate that assistance will be well-applied, and I am very pleased to make sure that the World Bank will be very supportive of this effort going forward.  So thank you, Secretary-General.

Mr. Mkwezalamba:  The African Union Commission is happy to participate in this meeting, and wishes to commend the Secretary-General for the initiative to put in place the Africa Steering Group on MDGs, as well as the working group.  We find this to be very supportive of the work that we are currently doing on the MDGs.  As it has been said, Africa risks missing meeting the MDGs.  We have done some analysis that also points to this.  This is in addition to what has already been done by other partners as well.  At the level of heads of state and government, this matter has been taken very seriously, including a decision that has been taken by the heads of state that we monitor the implementation of the Millennium Development Goals.  So this initiative will go a long way in supporting the efforts of the African Union.

The areas of focus – agriculture, education, health, infrastructure and statistics - are very critical for the African continent.  At the level of the African Union, we are working in these areas, but the support is required, particularly to finance the various programmes in these areas. In agriculture, for example, matters to do with addressing food security; in education, increasing access to primary education - there is need for investment in water and sanitation -  these are all very critical important areas.

The issue of statistics cannot be underestimated.  In Africa we have problems of data.  Data is not reliable, is not timely.  And therefore this is one area that we need to focus on.  We do appreciate the fact that this meeting also did look at developing statistical systems as one of the important areas of focus.

Of course, international support has not been forthcoming as promised, and this has been one of our major concerns.  You look at the commitments made since Monterrey in 2002, the Gleneagles summit in 2005  - we find that there is not much that has come to Africa.  This indeed is something that needs to be addressed if Africa is to attain the MDGs by the target date of 2015.

We, at the same time, do realize that Africa also has to take some initiatives on its own.  And we are looking at domestic resources mobilization as one component that would do.  And also looking at mobilizing resources from the African diaspora.

So, all in all, what we would like to say is that the African Union fully supports the initiative of the Secretary-General in putting in place the working group on MDGs.

Mr. Michel:  Well, ladies and gentlemen, I am of course very happy on behalf of the European Commission of President Barroso to express my very strong appreciation and support to this initiative which can relaunch the dynamic to mobilize additional funds in order to reach the MDGs.  But the quantity of finance is not enough, of course.  The quality is also very important.  Not only the donors must make efforts, we will make efforts.  The European Union has fulfilled the promises of 2000 and 2005. We expect that all the donors will also fulfil their own promises, but we have also to ask the beneficiaries, our partners, to make all the efforts that they have to do in order to reach the  MDGs. Of course, we cannot do the job alone.  This is also a very strong message to send.

The second consideration is that we have a special focus for aid-for-trade.  There cannot be sustainable development in developing countries without a very strong support on trade.  Because trade can of course bring prosperity and jobs and also can give to the states the means they need in order to bring the basic services to the people and to help the people.  This is also to be said.

All in all, I thank the Secretary-General for this initiative which comes just in time in order to make us able to reach the MDGs.  As you know, I am very strongly concerned about Africa, because Africa is lagging, in fact, behind.  We have very strong efforts to do in order to reach the MDGs in this part of the world.  We will [make] all the efforts which are needed.  A last message maybe is that time now has come to enrich the political dialogue with our partners.  Good governance, capacity-building, and all these things – transparency - and all these things which can make stronger the state capacity to deliver – is also very important.  Maybe we can reach it through a frank and open political dialogue.  It is also a dimension I am underlining.  I think it is important.  Thank you in any case for this initiative.

Mr. Portugal:  Good morning.  We would like just to express our commendation to the Secretary-General’s initiative which we think is very timely and appropriate of launching this steering committee to see what could be done to speed up the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals in Africa.  The continent is going through a good period now.  We have, this year, the strongest growth and the lowest inflation in more than thirty years in sub-Saharan Africa.  But we are still lagging behind in terms of growth, of what is needed to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, which as it has been said here by my colleagues, is endangered in a number of countries.  So we think that efforts are required on the part of the countries themselves and on the part of the international community to live up to the pledges that have been made in Gleneagles of increasing aid, and the IMF which has programmes in 22 sub-Saharan countries, will help in our area of speciality, which is macro-economic.  So we will continue to help countries to maintain macro-economic stability, to reduce their vulnerabilities, and to try to strengthen their fiscal systems and their public financial management systems, so that they can mobilize more domestic resources, but also can use better the resources of their own and the resources that are given in terms of aid, to use more effectively these resources.  So we will stay totally committed, as we are, with the continent, and we praise very much the Secretary-General for this very timely and appropriate initiative.  Thank you.

Q:  My question is to the African Union Commissioner.  Could you tell us exactly what are the figures, the amount of money that has been pledged, that hasn’t been given to Africa?  And what is your assessment of the reasons why?  And since the next meeting is going to be focusing on private investment, do you believe that private investment can really make a difference to help meet the MDGs?

Mr. Mkwezalamba: Yes, thank you very much for that question.  Actually, in terms of the pledges, there has been quite a substantial [amount] that has been pledged  First, there is the commitment for the partners to contribute;  O.7% of the gross national income to ODA.  Now, to date, this has not been achieved.  I think only five countries – these are particularly the Scandinavian countries, have been able to meet this particular commitment.  The rest are in their, maybe, O.3, O.4% of gross national income.  And then you also have the Gleneagles commitment which was essentially to double overseas development assistance to Africa from $25 billion to $50 billion by 2010.  To date, and we are only three years to go, we are not any closer to that, and this obviously is a concern to us.  And then to also add another dimension to it, is the question of debt relief.  If you look at debt relief that Africa is getting under, say, the HIPC initiative - that is the Highly Indebted Poor Country initiative - and the multilateral debt initiative, MDRI -  what one finds is that, yes, some countries have benefited from debt relief, but then, if you look at what has gone to Africa, taking out the debt relief - in 2005 and 2006, for example, ODA did actually decline to Africa, so this is where we are coming from, to say that not much has actually come through based on the commitments that have been made.

Q: Just as a quick follow-up, though, on the figures.  When you say that the Gleneagles figure hasn’t been changed, do you mean that they’re still at the original figure, that it hasn’t moved up at all?

Mr. Mkwezalamba: From the figures that we have, there hasn’t been much that has been done.  Your were talking about 2005 and this is 2007 – so it’s really within two years not much has actually happened. You did ask a question regarding private sector development.  And I just wanted to say that this is indeed key also, if we are looking at attaining the Millennium Development Goals.  If we promote private sector development, this will obviously lead to more job creation, increased output that would benefit the majority of the people in Africa.  Of course, this is supposed to be one of the areas that, I think, the Working Group will need to look at and see how best we can also promote private sector development within the continent, but also getting the involvement of the private sector when it comes to meeting the Millennium Development Goals.  So, I just wanted to endorse that this indeed is a very important area for the African continent.

Q:  Mr. Zoellick, when you talked about agriculture, are you talking about millennium villages?  Are you talking about seeds rather than power supplying the markets?  There’s been a big controversy about US products supplying the market, and then, for anyone, was this meeting to coordinate what you were all doing, or do you have new tasks that you came in here, that you decided to do at the meeting, or are you exchanging ideas of what you had planned to do, so you could coordinate and not step on each other?

Mr. Zoellick:  As for your first question.  What I was referring to was the overall possibilities of agricultural development in sub-Saharan Africa.  You have about two thirds to three quarters of the population living in rural areas, and perhaps about a third of the growth has come out of agriculture in recent years.  Each year, the World Bank produces a World Development Report and this will come out in October.  I was giving you a little advanced headline here in that the one that we’re doing this year focuses on the agriculture sector.  And what was striking to me, was that the overall poverty reduction effects in agriculture, as opposed to other sectors, are about four times the benefit of growth in other sectors because it works with the rural economy and others.  So there has been growth in African agriculture, but with some additional improvement in government policies, with the right inputs on the financing side, we believe the productivity of this could be very important.  And that links to the point that both the European Commission and the African Union has made about also connecting that to the trade side.  That also goes to your point about making the markets open and being able to make sure that the African farmers’ produce is available in the market place.

As for your second question – my view is that the meeting is useful in a number of ways.  One is, I think, it was excellent for the Secretary-General to draw attention to the fact that this is moving too slow, and how one needs to move together in the creation of the working group and other aspects.  But also we had a good discussion on some of these items.  And as the Secretary-General mentioned, Donald Kaberuka of the African Development Bank was the one that emphasized how, if we are really going to make this work, we also have to draw on the private sector.  We connected a little bit more on the trade and aid issues, and we talked about some of the specialized problems, including dealing with some of the post- conflict States, which, as all of you know, present very unique and challenging issues.  And, again, the Secretary-General should be commended for his work in Darfur, which I know well, trying to deal with one of the most challenging ones.  So, I think, in addition to framing the agenda, we actually had a substantive discussion and we’ve got a working group session that, I believe follows on the 20th, that will start to drive some of this home.  And, as each of us have mentioned, this only works if the international institution and the donors are working hand-in-hand with Africans.  It has to be done on an African basis.  And that is why we are very fortunate to have representatives of the African Union and the ADB too.

Secretary-General:  [about the coordination of the meeting] I don’t need to explain the importance of close coordination among agencies, multilateral and intergovernmental organizations.  The United Nations can always work for mobilizing the leadership’s political will.  We have the resources, and we have also all the commitment and programmes, but what we need at this time, while going through a mid-point year until 2015 - we need a strong political commitment and will.  This is a part of reaffirming this commitment. You may remember that the UK [United Kingdom] Prime Minister last July came to the UN, and we discussed this matter.  We are now working very closely to get the widest possible consensus to reaffirm, to re-commit this at the leaders’ level some time next year. I am committed, as I stated during the AU Summit meeting in Addis Ababa in January, and, at the same time, in Heilingendamm G-8 Summit Meeting. The MDG is one of my top priorities, together with overall African challenges.

Q:  Mr. Secretary-General.  My question is about multinationals’  interests.  It is just between multinationals and the security and stability of certain parts of African, especially sub-Saharan Africa, mineral rich countries.  There is a conflict of interest. Did you discuss this and how are you going to address certain instabilities in certain countries where minerals are available?

Secretary-General:  It is true that certain countries, as the President of the World Bank has stated, are rich in mineral resources and natural resources. Some countries do not have that.  Therefore, we need some overall, comprehensive plans. These are the MDGs.  MDGs are aiming to make balanced progress to development worldwide, particularly in developing countries in aid areas.  This morning we have focused on the five areas, as the AU Commissioner said:  education, health, agriculture, infrastructure and statistical systems. Those are areas where this Steering Group will focus to strengthen.  We need the full support from developed countries.  At the same time, developing countries should also do their own work through practicing good governance and having good national-level policies.  These policies will be continuously assisted by the international community, collectively.  There are some concerns about whether these goals may be achieved by 2015.  I am confident that  these goals can be achievable, if we work together.

Q:  How about the multinationals’ role, adverse role – sometimes [they] have played on instability role in these countries.

Secretary-General:  We should not look too much at this negative side.  There are many positive sides of all these multinational corporations.  Therefore, we talk about private sector investment, all these MNCs, they are good representative of private sector investment.  Therefore, we always encourage those good aspects.  At the same time, there should be good governance, fair competition.  All these are the basic principles.

Q:  Sir, what is your reaction to the African Union representative  saying that most of the donor nations are not meeting their own targets? And what are you going to do, instead of 0.7, he mentioned 0.3 and 0.4?  Besides the responsibility of the African countries, don’t you think the rich countries are also responsible?

Secretary-General:  It is important for donor countries and other industrialized countries to work to meet this target of 0.7% of GNI.  At the same time, as was agreed and committed by the G-8 in Gleneagles, doubling the aid to African Union…that commitment, I am quite confident that will be met.

Q:  My question is for the President of the World Bank.  Sir, you talked about Mozambique and you said, “right leadership, right support and right programmes.  Can you develop a little – what do you call “right leadership”?

Mr. Zoellick:  What I was referring to was that, particularly in these societies after a conflict, it is critical that there be some effort to try and reconcile those that have often fought against one another.  But also try to create an environment, where there is some ability to demobilize forces, reintegrate them in society, give them some chance of an economic future.  In the case of Mozambique, after a very, very long conflict, it was also a question of trying to create some of the basic infrastructure for a country that was rich in resources, to be able to benefit from that.  At the same time, you may want to have, say, land distribution policies to allow people to get the benefit of agriculture.

Just yesterday, I was talking with the Governor of Aceh and we were focusing on this exact issue, where he has got the challenge of moving beyond the immediate problems of the past years of reconstruction, trying to create the basis of economic development.  So my core message is - each country’s circumstances are special.  And so, at the same time, we are trying to mobilize resources – we have to customize.  And, as the Secretary-General [and] Louis Michel particularly emphasized - you have to have national ownership.  It doesn’t work if people don’t have the buy-in themselves and have the support.  But, within that framework, if they do the right things, if they take the efforts to move beyond conflict, if, as I mentioned, about 17 countries are on the edge of really becoming real growth stories.  Then they need the help and assistance of the international community and that is why the Secretary-General has organized this.

Mr. Michel:  I heard that donors have not fulfilled their commitment that they made in 2000 and 2005 – the European Commission - it is my duty to remember that.  The European Commission and the European Union have fulfilled the targets. We are on time, and we have fulfilled the promises that were made.  But I am fully confident that, after this meeting, with the assistance of the Secretary-General and all the people who are here, we will have the means - the political and moral means – to convince all the donors to fulfill their promises. So I think we are on a good path in order to reach the MDGs and more, to reach the amounts we have promised.

Q:  This week, at the UN Development Programme Executive Board meeting, a number was put forward in which the UN, its main development programme, last year put $1.3 billion into Latin America and $526 million into Africa.  So, some people were saying - what can be done to make sure that the UN system, for a variety of reasons, puts most of its resources where it is most needed and where the MDGs are running behind. And also, for the Deputy Secretary-General, in the Working Group, another that came up in this meeting which I have been covering, was - somebody had said that maybe there’s a competition for resources between UNDP and the World Bank – this was one of the Member States that said it, threw it out there.  What can the UN do in your Working Group to make sure that there’s not a turf war, and that everyone actually works together.  Thanks a lot.

Secretary-General:  The UN system is fully behind, and working very closely together, led by this UNDG chair. We have many specialized agencies, funds and programmes.  Their priority is focused on this, realizing MDG goals.

Deputy Secretary-General::  As you have heard, I will be chairing the Working Group.  The  Working Group will constitute officials, at the working level, from the institutions that have been represented in the Steering Group of the Secretary-General.  The intention there is, first of all, to look at the actual actions that will have to be taken in order to give further push to the MDGs.  And, as the Secretary-General has said, this will identify the areas, resource mobilization, the sectors that need to be focused and so on.  But one of the intentions of having this meeting so inclusive is to ensure that each one of us plays a role, with the United Nations taking the lead, at the initiative of the Secretary-General.  So what we will do, will not only look at actions that need to be done, but also actions that can be scaled up by those who are going to participate in this.  But it is not only this side, but also the side of the nations  themselves.  That is why the African Union has talked of national resource mobilization and acts that have to be taken at the national level as well.  This will ensure not only ownership, but also  sustainability of the various interventions that will have been  identified, and for which the Working Group will be looking to, in order to ensure that this initiative of the Secretary-General succeeds.

Q:  Ambassador Zoellick, I have a question. How can you apply your experiences that you, as trade representative and your experience with the Goa Act, to the goals?

Mr. Zoellick:  Just so you know, this was a point that a number of my colleagues raised more generally which is that, for much of the focus of this session is on the Millennium Development Goals which obviously focus on basic issues of education and health, but also poverty and growth.  And, to do that, one has to be able to have an opportunity to remove impediments within African markets.  We discussed removing impediments across some of the African borders and then also, ultimately, globally. So, really the one level is to try to make sure that efforts to open markets, such as the Doha agenda succeed, which it could do and should do.  Second, as you mentioned, are some of the regional efforts, like the Goa which have been very successful in creating opportunities for markets, and I know that the European Union has worked its “on everything but arms” initiative to try to do the same things.  There are issues that come up in those, for example, rules of origin topics or, for agriculture good, sanitary and phytosanitary standards.  So one of the things we can help do, and national governments can help do, is make sure that, when countries start to produce more, that it can meet the standards, the health standards and others, to be able to try to export it.  And then, more generally, another theme that we have discussed here is the aid-for-trade agenda. And I think there is a meeting going on right now, or in the past days, in Peru, one of three around the world – Peru, Stockholm and also one in Tanzania that will ultimately culminate one in Geneva - to try to go to different regions and try to refine what can be done on the aid side to connect it with the trade side.  And so, for example, you can open markets but, if you don’t have people that are basically trained to negotiate the agreements, to implement the agreements, or from the perspective of the World Bank, if you don’t have roads to get things to market, if you don’t courts, you don’t get the advantages.  So it is how do you connect those items together and that’s an interesting enough subject that came up from all the participants.  So the Working Group needs to focus, and one of our colleagues, Kemal Dervis, mentioned this, and some very pointed interventions too.  There are things one can do in the water sector, in the health sector - not be distracted by the cosmos  – but you have also to have the context right.