lennart
06-11-02, 02:29
IF GEORGE BUSH spent more time and money on mobilising Weapons of Mass
Salvation (WMS) in addition to combating Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD),
we might actually get somewhere in making this planet a safer and more
hospitable home. WMD can kill millions and their spread to dangerous hands
needs to be opposed resolutely. WMS, in contrast, are the arsenal of
life-saving vaccines, medicines and health interventions, emergency food aid
and farming technologies that could avert literally millions of deaths each
year in the wars against epidemic disease, drought and famine. Yet while the
Bush administration is prepared to spend $100 billion to rid Iraq of WMD, it
has been unwilling to spend more than 0.2% of that sum ($200m) this year on
the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.
The great leaders of the second world war alliance, Franklin Roosevelt and
Winston Churchill, understood the twin sides of destruction and salvation.
Their war aims were not only to defeat fascism, but to create a world of
shared prosperity. Roosevelt talked not only about Freedom from Fear but
also Freedom from Want. One of the reasons why the Bush administration is
losing the battle for the world's hearts and minds is precisely that it
fights only the war on terror, while turning a cold and steely eye away from
the millions dying of hunger and disease. When is the last time anybody
heard Vice-President Dick Cheney even feign a word of concern for the
world's poor?
Last month Mr Bush made a speech to the General Assembly of the United
Nations. In calling for action against Iraq, he challenged the international
community to live up to its own words. "We want the United Nations to be
effective, and respectful, and successful. We want the resolutions of the
world's most important multilateral body to be enforced." He asked whether
"the United Nations will serve the purpose of its founding, or will be
irrelevant?" The idea that UN commitments should be followed by action is
indeed a radical one, especially for the United States, where wilful neglect
of its own commitments is the rule.
Just one week before Mr Bush's UN speech, at the Johannesburg World Summit
on Sustainable Development, the rich countries promised to put real
resources behind the "Millennium Development Goals" of cutting poverty,
disease and environmental degradation. They agreed (the United States among
them) to "urge the developed countries that have not done so to make
concrete efforts towards the target of 0.7% of GNP as ODA [official
development assistance] to developing countries." The United States falls
$60 billion a year short of that target-a seemingly unbridgeable gap, until
one realises that the annual military spending in America has risen by about
that amount since Mr Bush entered the White House. The United States spends
just 0.1% of GNP on foreign assistance. It is firmly in last place among the
22 donor countries in aid as a share of income, a position it will continue
to hold even after the small increases the administration announced earlier
this year.
No conditions, no excuses
If we were to send teams of "UN development inspectors" into the United
States, the results would not be pretty. First, they would discover a nearly
total disconnect between global commitments and domestic politics. Mr Bush
has not discussed America's commitments at Johannesburg with the American
people (and perhaps his aides have not even discussed them with the
president).
Second, they would find complete disarray with regard to the organisation,
budgeting, and staffing necessary to fulfil the commitments. White House and
State Department foreign-policy experts are overwhelmingly directed towards
military and diplomatic issues, not development issues. Senior development
specialists in the Treasury can be counted on one hand. America's government
is not even aware of the gap between its commitments and action, because
almost nobody in authority understands the actions that would be needed to
meet the commitments.
No serious work whatever is under way within the government to link annual
budgetary allocations with the international development goals the United
States has endorsed. For example, the Bush administration has failed to
produce even one credible document spelling out America's role in a
global-scale war against AIDS.
America's planned contribution to the global AIDS fund is around a sixth of
what is needed in 2003, according to the fund itself. The evidence shows
that $25 billion a year from the donors could avert around 8m deaths each
year. The expected $100 billion cost of war against Iraq would therefore be
enough to avert around 30m premature deaths from disease, if channelled into
a sustained and organised partnership with the poor countries.
There is a way out. It is to empower the United Nations to do what it can
truly do: organise a global response to the global challenges of disease
control, hunger, lack of schooling and environmental destruction, an effort
in which the United States would be a major participant and indeed
financier, in exactly the manner that it has repeatedly pledged.
The idea that the UN system could provide real leadership on the great
development challenges will strain credulity in some quarters. A steady
drumbeat of criticism about the UN agencies during the 1990s, led by
right-wing leaders in Congress, has left the impression of nearly moribund
institutions, busy securing patronage slots for friends and relatives, and
disconnected from the rapid advances in technology, finance and
globalisation. Indeed, when I began my own intensive work with the UN
agencies three years ago, as chairman of a commission for the World Health
Organisation, and then more recently as a special adviser to the
secretary-general for the Millennium Development Goals, I was unsure what to
expect within the specialised agencies of the United Nations.
Salvation (WMS) in addition to combating Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD),
we might actually get somewhere in making this planet a safer and more
hospitable home. WMD can kill millions and their spread to dangerous hands
needs to be opposed resolutely. WMS, in contrast, are the arsenal of
life-saving vaccines, medicines and health interventions, emergency food aid
and farming technologies that could avert literally millions of deaths each
year in the wars against epidemic disease, drought and famine. Yet while the
Bush administration is prepared to spend $100 billion to rid Iraq of WMD, it
has been unwilling to spend more than 0.2% of that sum ($200m) this year on
the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.
The great leaders of the second world war alliance, Franklin Roosevelt and
Winston Churchill, understood the twin sides of destruction and salvation.
Their war aims were not only to defeat fascism, but to create a world of
shared prosperity. Roosevelt talked not only about Freedom from Fear but
also Freedom from Want. One of the reasons why the Bush administration is
losing the battle for the world's hearts and minds is precisely that it
fights only the war on terror, while turning a cold and steely eye away from
the millions dying of hunger and disease. When is the last time anybody
heard Vice-President Dick Cheney even feign a word of concern for the
world's poor?
Last month Mr Bush made a speech to the General Assembly of the United
Nations. In calling for action against Iraq, he challenged the international
community to live up to its own words. "We want the United Nations to be
effective, and respectful, and successful. We want the resolutions of the
world's most important multilateral body to be enforced." He asked whether
"the United Nations will serve the purpose of its founding, or will be
irrelevant?" The idea that UN commitments should be followed by action is
indeed a radical one, especially for the United States, where wilful neglect
of its own commitments is the rule.
Just one week before Mr Bush's UN speech, at the Johannesburg World Summit
on Sustainable Development, the rich countries promised to put real
resources behind the "Millennium Development Goals" of cutting poverty,
disease and environmental degradation. They agreed (the United States among
them) to "urge the developed countries that have not done so to make
concrete efforts towards the target of 0.7% of GNP as ODA [official
development assistance] to developing countries." The United States falls
$60 billion a year short of that target-a seemingly unbridgeable gap, until
one realises that the annual military spending in America has risen by about
that amount since Mr Bush entered the White House. The United States spends
just 0.1% of GNP on foreign assistance. It is firmly in last place among the
22 donor countries in aid as a share of income, a position it will continue
to hold even after the small increases the administration announced earlier
this year.
No conditions, no excuses
If we were to send teams of "UN development inspectors" into the United
States, the results would not be pretty. First, they would discover a nearly
total disconnect between global commitments and domestic politics. Mr Bush
has not discussed America's commitments at Johannesburg with the American
people (and perhaps his aides have not even discussed them with the
president).
Second, they would find complete disarray with regard to the organisation,
budgeting, and staffing necessary to fulfil the commitments. White House and
State Department foreign-policy experts are overwhelmingly directed towards
military and diplomatic issues, not development issues. Senior development
specialists in the Treasury can be counted on one hand. America's government
is not even aware of the gap between its commitments and action, because
almost nobody in authority understands the actions that would be needed to
meet the commitments.
No serious work whatever is under way within the government to link annual
budgetary allocations with the international development goals the United
States has endorsed. For example, the Bush administration has failed to
produce even one credible document spelling out America's role in a
global-scale war against AIDS.
America's planned contribution to the global AIDS fund is around a sixth of
what is needed in 2003, according to the fund itself. The evidence shows
that $25 billion a year from the donors could avert around 8m deaths each
year. The expected $100 billion cost of war against Iraq would therefore be
enough to avert around 30m premature deaths from disease, if channelled into
a sustained and organised partnership with the poor countries.
There is a way out. It is to empower the United Nations to do what it can
truly do: organise a global response to the global challenges of disease
control, hunger, lack of schooling and environmental destruction, an effort
in which the United States would be a major participant and indeed
financier, in exactly the manner that it has repeatedly pledged.
The idea that the UN system could provide real leadership on the great
development challenges will strain credulity in some quarters. A steady
drumbeat of criticism about the UN agencies during the 1990s, led by
right-wing leaders in Congress, has left the impression of nearly moribund
institutions, busy securing patronage slots for friends and relatives, and
disconnected from the rapid advances in technology, finance and
globalisation. Indeed, when I began my own intensive work with the UN
agencies three years ago, as chairman of a commission for the World Health
Organisation, and then more recently as a special adviser to the
secretary-general for the Millennium Development Goals, I was unsure what to
expect within the specialised agencies of the United Nations.