UK's Brown to urge action to reach UN poverty goals

Reutersreports that “British Prime Minister Gordon Brown will call for action Tuesday to put the world back on track to meet U.N. goals to slash extreme poverty by 2015. A day after his first talks with President Bush, the new British leader will give a speech at the United Nations to demonstrate his belief in international cooperation and his determination to improve the lot of the world's poor.

           
A report released this month on progress so far found most of the United Nation's Millennium Development Goals were far from being met. "Gordon Brown is going to focus on what we need to do to achieve these goals, to get back on track," a British government source said about Brown's speech Tuesday which he will deliver after meeting U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

Ban said this month the world would struggle to meet the U.N. goals, but said it could be done if rich countries boosted their international aid budgets.  As Britain's long-serving finance minister before succeeding Tony Blair as prime minister in June, Brown has long been an advocate for reducing poor countries' debt burden and fighting poverty and disease in the developing world.” [Reuters]

           
BBC News writes that “...[i]n a speech at the UN, after meeting the secretary general Ban Ki-moon, [Brown] said the millennium development goals were "a million miles" from being met.…     

Mr Ban and Mr Brown discussed ways of dealing with the situation in Darfur where 200,000 people have been killed. Mr Brown said a resolution, put forward by the UK, France and the US and setting up a peacekeeping force, would be accepted later on Tuesday. …

In his speech Mr Brown focused on trying to find practical ways of meeting the ambitious goals set by world leaders in 2000. Goals include eradicating extreme poverty, achieving universal primary education, promoting gender equality, cutting child deaths and combating diseases. He said that at the current rate of progress those goals would not be met until 2100 - and said it had to be declared to be a "development emergency". [BBC News]

An article in Guardian Unlimited adds that “A UN progress report on meeting the goals found that while the proportion of people living on one dollar a day or less has declined from 45.9% to 41.1% since 1999, reaching the MDG target of halving the extent of extreme poverty by 2015 requires that the current pace be almost doubled. There has been progress towards universal primary education, with enrolment increasing from 57% in 1999 to 70% in 2005 - but a gap of 30% remains, and the number of school-age children is increasing daily.

Although the share of parliamentary seats held by women has increased substantially, from 7% in 1990 to 17% this year, the share of women who earn a salary, aside from farming, still stood at less than one third in 2005. [Guardian Unlimited]

World Bank Urges Philippines To Make Better Use Of Aid Funds

“The World Bank said Monday it has asked the Philippines to make better use of hundreds of millions of dollars lent by the multilateral agency every year.  

For 2007, just 15.2 percent of the total aid pledged by the World Bank had been disbursed so far, slower than in the previous year and below the 20 percent agreed target, it said in a statement.  The actual amounts released in 2007 and 2006 both stood at around $137.2 million dollars, compared to the pledged amounts of $410 million and $395 million. …” [Agence France Presse/Factiva]

           
BusinessWorld reports that “…’The slow disbursement is attributed mainly to issues linked to insufficient level of readiness, complex project design, slow progress in policy reforms on which the release of loans is hinged, and delays in budget approval and/or release by the government,’ the World Bank added.  

World Bank [Manager Portfolio and Operations] Maryse Gautier met President Gloria Arroyo's economic managers on Friday to address implementation bottlenecks, the lender said in its statement. One aid program involves the building of 3,660 new classrooms and the repair of 13,801 others.  

Gautier urged Manila to use ‘efficient modes of school construction’ so they are ‘finished on time at reasonable cost and without any reported anomalies.’ …Gautier said she expects Manila's World Bank loan use to double to 31 percent as the government taps into funds meant to support its reform agenda in key sectors. …” [BusinessWorld (Philippines)/Factiva]

US, Britain optimistic for WTO trade deal

Reuters reports that “[t]he United States and Britain are optimistic that World Trade Organization members can reach a long-sought agreement soon in the Doha round of world trade talks, the two country's leaders said on Monday…

Brown said he had spoken in recent days with leaders like European Union President Jose Manuel Barroso, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and World Trade Organization boss Pascal Lamy.            India, Brazil, Europe and the United States have been among the leading players in the WTO's Doha round, the fractious trade talks that were launched in 2001 in Qatar.

Even that quartet of powerful trading nations has been unable to agree to a formula for lowering tariffs in farm and manufacturing trade and reducing subsidies in the round, in addition to the other thorny issues that have stood in the way of a new global trade deal for almost six years.” [Reuters]

In a related article, Itar-Tass writes that “[a]t consultations on Russia’s entry into the World Trade Organization in Geneva last week, Russia managed to do even more than expected, the director of the department for trade negotiations at the Ministry for Economic Development and Trade said in an interview with the Kommersant daily on Tuesday.

“The working plan was implemented maximally, and ten divisions of a working report that we had presented were practically approved,” Maxim Medvedkov said. “As for two more, Georgia has reserved the possibility to discuss them,” he stressed.

In reply to a question about demands put forward by Saudi Arabian representatives, Medvedkov said “We didn’t get an impression that partners from Saudi Arabia seek to achieve substantially more than the countries with which we have completed negotiations.” [Itar-Tass]

           
In a related article, in the Associated Press "[American] South Plains cotton producer Doug Hlavaty is dumbfounded by the World Trade Organization decision last week that went against U.S. growers — again.

The interim decision contends changes made last year in what the trade body says are illegal subsidies to American producers were insufficient. "It doesn't make sense," Hlavaty said Monday. "The (cotton) farmers here aren't getting rich. As long as we make a crop, we get by." [Associated Press]

Western Officials Cautious On Developing World's Investment Funds

“The United States, France and Germany are racing to draw up rules to govern the state-controlled investment funds of developing countries, spurred in part by Barclays' use of Chinese and Singaporean money in its takeover bid for the Dutch bank ABN AMRO. With no international body like the World Trade Organization to oversee such investment, US officials are pushing the International Monetary Fund and World Bank to set guidelines. Germany and France, meanwhile, are urging a joint European response.

           
Sovereign wealth funds, which invest official currency reserves in foreign assets, control an estimated $2.5 trillion, more than all the world's hedge funds combined. Those who favor rules or guidelines on their conduct say they might avoid a spiral of tit-for-tat curbs on investment that could hurt the world economy. ‘All it takes is one fund to do something nutty and the risk of a backlash of protectionism will increase,’ said Edwin Truman, a former US Treasury economist who is now a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington. …” [TheInternational Herald Tribune]

           
FT writes that “… Sovereign wealth funds themselves have been around for decades. The Kuwait Investment Authority, created in 1960 to invest the emirate's oil revenues, has accumulated more than $100 billion of assets, including a recent 3.1 percent stake in EADS, the aerospace group. The largest sovereign fund is thought to be the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, which ING, the Dutch banking group, estimates has as much as $500 billion under management. Countries with commodity-based sovereign funds also include Botswana, Brunei, Qatar and Norway. More recently, Russia launched the Stabilization Fund, which has received every dollar of oil revenue above a certain price since 2004 and is now worth more than $100 billion. …  

           
The threat that such concerns could disrupt capital flows prompted an overhaul of the vetting system for foreign acquisitions of US assets. Last week, President George W. Bush signed legislation to strengthen scrutiny by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US that advocates of foreign investment hope will reduce uncertainty in the future. … One early sign that this hope may be fulfilled has been the response to China's $3 billion investment in last month's initial public offering of Blackstone, the US private equity group. …

           
There are signs of deepening concerns elsewhere in Europe, where politicians and business leaders are already more resistant than the British to foreign acquisitions. Angela Merkel, German chancellor, said this month that Berlin was considering legislation to make it harder for sovereign wealth funds to take over German companies. …” [The Financial Times (UK)]

Education, Health Care Lag Behind As Indian Economy Soars: Report

“Education and health care are lagging seriously behind as India and other South Asian economies take off, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) said in [the South Asia Economic] Report released in Manila Tuesday.  

It warned that the region's competitiveness could be undermined unless governments address the growing mismatches. …Despite the rapid economic growth of recent years, its quality of education and health care remains worse than all other parts of the world except sub-Saharan Africa, ADB said. … 

Governments must devote more resources to education, the report said, noting that India has only 12,000 training and vocational institutes, compared to half a million in China. The report also cited the burden of rising non-communicable diseases as lifestyles change. …” [Agence France Presse/Factiva]

           
Xinhua writes that “…China and India account for 64 percent of total real GDP of the 23 economies participating in the study…However, a completely different picture emerged if the size of these economies was adjusted by population, said the study. Rather than dominating the rankings, China and India dropped to 10th and 18th positions, respectively, out of the 23 economies participating in the full GDP comparison. …” [Xinhua (China)/Factiva]  

           
Asia Pulse adds that “…Similarly, China ranks 15th and India 17th when economies are compared based on ‘actual final consumption of households’ (AFCH), a better measure of economic well-being of the population…” [Asia Pulse (Australia)/Factiva]

AFX notes that “…The results will be used to deploy investment strategies, the ADB's global campaign against poverty and national policies such as appropriate spending on schools or infrastructure in Asia, the report said. …” [AFX/Factiva]  

Business Recorder reports that “…The region faces significant challenges to meet the MDGs for education and health. …  

One of the report’s key messages is that these global and regional trends tend to aggravate inequalities unless governments in the region implement policies and programs that will guarantee ‘inclusive’ economic growth. By effective pro-poor targeting, leveraging of technology, and innovative public-private partnerships, for the poor, and reduce the divide between them and the wealthier segments of society. …” [Business Recorder (India)/Factiva] 

Also in this Edition: Briefly Noted…

South Africa will soon carry out a nationwide survey among businesses, whose results will be used to help combat corruption in business. Public Service and Administration Minister Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi said on Monday that the survey is expected to assist policy makers to assess and monitor corruption in private sector businesses countrywide. [Xinhua (China)/Factiva]

The energy efficiency of China's fuel-guzzling economy is improving but the country -the world's No. 2 oil consumer - is still struggling to meet self-imposed conservation targets, a government news agency reported Tuesday. [Associated Press/Factiva]

The World Bank and International Finance Corporation (IFC) are planning to issue peso-denominated bonds this year to finance project and program loans for the Philippines.  

Finance Undersecretary Roberto Tan told reporters yesterday the bonds would be similar to the five-year peso denominated bonds of the Asian Development Bank. [Manila Standard (Philippines)/Factiva] 

The Afghan Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development Muhammad Ihsan Zia is going to launch 72 reconstruction plans in the southern zone. The announcement was made in Kandahar on Monday. [Asia Pulse (Australia)/Factiva] 

Reaffirming its commitment to the growth of infrastructure in India, World Bank's lending arm IFC, today said it has doubled its investment portfolio in the country's infrastructure sector to $600 million during the last fiscal year. [The Press Trust of India/Facitva]  

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Monday urged Estonia to tighten government spending and aim for bigger budget surpluses to fund pensions for a growing segment of retirees. In addition, the IMF warned that Estonia's economy is overheating, with inflation levels above those specified for adoption of the Euro. [Reuters/Factiva]

The EU warned China on Monday of the dangers of lending money to Africa and said it was not willing to write off any unpaid debt to Beijing... Cravinho said a long-awaited EU-Africa summit in December would aim to boost political and economic ties with Africa and make good governance a cornerstone of this relationship. He said China had a lot to learn from Europe and hoped it would be present at the summit as an observer. [Reuters/Factiva]  

Slovenia will try to persuade Serbia to give Kosovo independence in exchange for a chance to join the EU. Officials in Ljubljana hope to use Slovenia’s presidency of the EU next year, in exchange for EU candidate status for Serbia. [The Financial Times (UK)]

The UN General Assembly is to kick off a two-day debate on climate change Tuesday to lay the groundwork for upcoming high-level international meetings on how to tackle the burning issue. The informal debate, which will bring together prominent scientists, business leaders and UN officials, is ‘to consider how to translate the growing scientific consensus on climate change into a broad political consensus for action,’ a UN statement said. [Agence France Presse/Factiva]  

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is expected to call for a greater international effort to combat HIV/AIDS and poverty in a speech at the UN. Brown wants world leaders to live up to their Millennium promises made seven years ago to tackle a range of issues. [BBC News (UK)]

           
“Burundi risks losing $40 million in World Bank funds because its divided parliament has failed to ratify the grant, the country's vice-presidency has warned.   The World Bank allocated $40 million to Burundi to tackle poverty in the 116 communes, but opposition lawmakers have so far refused to ratify the convention,’ spokesman Steve De Cliff told reporters Sunday. …. The World Bank will accept an extension until August 21’ but after that the aid will be cancelled, he said. …” [Agence France Presse/Factiva]