MDG Gap Task Force Report 2013

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The Global Partnershipor Development:The Challenge We Face

Millennium Development Goal 8

MDG Gap Task Force

Report 2013

UNITED NATIONS


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The present report was prepared by the MDG Gap Task Force, which was created by the Secretary-

General o the United Nations to improve the monitoring o MDG 8 by leveraging inter-agency

coordination. More than 30 United Nations entities and other organizations are represented in

the Task Force, including the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, as well as the

Organization or Economic Cooperation and Development and the World Trade Organization.

The Department o Economic and Social Aairs o the United Nations Secretariat and the

United Nations Development Programme acted as lead agencies in coordinating the work o the

Task Force. The Task Force was co-chaired by Shamshad Akhtar, Assistant Secretary-General

or Economic Development, and Olav Kjrven, Assistant Secretary-General and Director o the

Bureau or Development Policy o the United Nations Development Programme, and coordinated

by Pingan Hong, Acting Director, and Keiji Inoue, Economic Aairs Ofcer, in the Department o

Economic and Social Aairs o the United Nations Secretariat.

List o bodies and agencies represented on the MDG Gap Task Force

Department o Economic and Social Aairs o theUnited Nations Secretariat (UN/DESA)

Department o Public Inormation o the United

Nations Secretariat (DPI)

Economic and Social Commission or Asia and the

Pacifc (ESCAP)

Economic and Social Commission or Western Asia

(ESCWA)

Economic Commission or Arica (ECA)

Economic Commission or Europe (ECE)

Economic Commission or Latin America and the

Caribbean (ECLAC)

International Labour Organization (ILO)

International Monetary Fund (IMF)

International Telecommunication Union (ITU)

International Trade Centre (ITC)

Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS

(UNAIDS)

Ofce o the United Nations High Commissioner

or Human Rights (OHCHR)

Organization or Economic Cooperation and

Development (OECD)

United Nations Childrens Fund (UNICEF)

United Nations Conerence on Trade and

Development (UNCTAD)

United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)

United Nations Educational, Scientifc and Cultural

Organization (UNESCO)

United Nations Framework Convention on ClimateChange (UNFCCC)

United Nations Fund or International Partnerships

(UNFIP)

United Nations Industrial Development

Organization (UNIDO)

United Nations Institute or Training and Research

(UNITAR)

United Nations International Strategy or Disaster

Reduction (UNISDR)

United Nations Ofce or Project Services (UNOPS)

United Nations Ofce o the High Representative

or the Least Developed Countries, Landlocked

Developing Countries and Small Island Developing

States (UN-OHRLLS)

United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA)

United Nations Research Institute or Social

Development (UNRISD)

World Bank

World Food Programme (WFP)

World Health Organization (WHO)

World Institute or Development Economics

Research o the United Nations University

(UNU-WIDER)

World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO)

World Meteorological Organization (WMO)

World Tourism Organization (UNWTO)

World Trade Organization (WTO)

Cover photo: UN Photo


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Millennium Development Goal 8

The Global Partnershipfor Development:The Challenge We Face

MDG Gap Task Force Report 2013

asdfUnited Nations

New York, 2013


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United Nations publicationSales No. E.13.I.5ISBN 978-92-1-101278-1

Copyright United Nations, 2013All rights reserved


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iii

Preace

Te Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) have mobilized action romGovernments, civil society and other partners around the world, with signi-cant results. Extreme poverty has been cut in hal. More people have access toimproved sources o water. Conditions are better or 200 million people livingin slums. More girls are in school. Child and maternal mortality is declining.

Around the world, wherever we look, the MDGs have brought successbut not complete success. Achievements vary within and among countries. Glob-ally, we are lagging badly on some targetsespecially sanitation, which poses amajor threat to the health o people and the environment.

Less than 1,000 days o action remain to close these gaps. o acceleratemomentum and scale up what has been shown to work, the international com-munity must keep scal promises and reinorce the global partnership or devel-opment. Tis is important not just or achieving the MDGs but or the credibilityo a post-2015 sustainable development agenda that can eradicate extreme povertyand hunger.

Te present report tracks delivery on the commitments listed under Mil-lennium Development Goal 8the global partnership or development. Someo the indicators show progress, but eorts towards the United Nations target oallocating 0.7 per cent o gross national income to development aid have beenreceding in the past two years. We must reverse this trend.

An increasing proportion o exports rom least developed countries enteringdeveloped-country markets on a preerential basis demonstrates some advancein international trade policy, but the Doha Development Agenda has ociallybeen at an impasse since the end o 2011. In the case o debt sustainability, theinternational initiative or heavily indebted poor countries has been successullyimplemented. However, a number o small island developing States needed torestructure their debt in 2012 and additional countries are at high risk o debtdistress, nine o them in sub-Saharan Arica.

Access to essential medicines is insucient. Prices remain high and dis-pensing acilities are not appropriately stocked. And, while access to inormationand communication technologies is expanding rapidly, disparities in access and

costs remain high.Te picture is mixed. We can do better. Te best way to prepare or the

post-2015 era is to demonstrate that when the international community commitsto a global partnership or development, it means it and directs its resources to

where they are most needed. Let us thereore intensiy our eorts in the remain-ing months to achieve the MDGs by 2015.

Ban Ki-moonSecretary-General of the United Nations


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v

Contents

Page

Preace

List o Millennium Development Goals and Goal 8 targets andindicators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix

Executive summary

Te global partnership or development in retrospect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi

Ocial development assistance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xii

Market access . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiiDebt sustainability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii

Access to aordable essential medicines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiv

Access to new technologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xv

The global partnership or development in retrospect

Lessons rom monitoring Goal 8 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

Origins o the global partnership or development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Te global partnership since the Millennium Declaration . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

owards a more eective global partnership or development . . . . . . . . . 9

Box 1

Evolution o indicators monitored by the ask Force . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Ocial development assistance

Update o commitments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

ODA delivery and prospects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Allocation by region and country . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

Aid modalities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

Additional actors in international development cooperation . . . . . . . . . . 24

Te uture o eective development cooperation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

Figures

1. Main components o ODA rom DAC members, 2000-2012 . . . . . 15

2. ODA o DAC members, 2000 and 2010-2012 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

3. ODA o DAC donors provided to least developed countries, 2000,2010 and 2011 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

4. otal ODA received by priority groups o countries, 2000-2011 . . 20

5. ODA per poor person (living on $1.25 a day) in 2010 and povertyratios, by region . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

6. Share o untied bilateral ODA o DAC members, 2010 and 2011 . . 23

7. Share o untied bilateral ODA o DAC members to LDCs, 2011 . . 24


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Page

Tables

1. Delivery gaps in aid commitments by DAC donors, 2011 and2012 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

2. op aid recipients in 2011 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

Market access (trade)

Uncertain direction or multilateralism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

Eorts to break the Doha Round impasse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

Increasing reliance on regional trade agreements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

Developing countries in global trade . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

rade-restrictive measures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

Labour mobility and remittances . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

Market access . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

Preerential access . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

ari barriers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

Agricultural subsidies in OECD countries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

Non-tari measures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

Aid or rade . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

Figures

1. Active notications o regional trade agreements, 1957-2013 . . . . . 32

2. Regional shares o global exports, 2000-2012 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

3. Proportion o developed-country imports rom developing

countries admitted duty ree, 2000-2011 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 364. Average taris imposed by developed countries on key products

rom developing countries, 2000-2011 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

5. aris and non-tari measures aecting exporters . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

6. Rejections o agri-ood imports, 2002-2011 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

7. Aid or rade commitments, 2006-2011 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42

8. Aid or rade commitments by region, 2002-2005, 2010 and 2011 42

Tables

1. ari peaks and escalation in high-income OECD countries,2000 and 2006-2012 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

2. Agricultural support in OECD countries, 1990, 2000 and 2006-2012 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

Debt sustainability

Te debt situation in developing countries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

Progress in relie or debt-crisis countries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

owards an international debt workout mechanism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

Policies or sustainable debt nancing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

Responsible lending and borrowing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

Debt management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

Orderly restructuring o debt when necessary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58


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viiContents

Page

Figures

1. External debt o developing countries, 2000-2012 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

2. Government debt o developing countries, 2005-2012 . . . . . . . . . . 46

3. Risk o debt distress in sub-Saharan Arica, 2006-2013 . . . . . . . . . 484. External debt service o developing countries, 2000-2012 . . . . . . . 48

5. Fiscal balances o low- and middle-income countries, 2005-2012 . 49

6. Current-account balances o developing countries, 2005-2012 . . . . 50

7. Share o short-term debt in external debt o developing countries,2000-2012 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

8. Average poverty-reducing expenditure and debt service in HIPCs,2001-2012 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

Tables

1. Debt-relie status o HIPCs (at end-April 2013) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52

Access to afordable essential medicines

International commitments and developments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

Availability and prices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60

Aordability o essential medicines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

Eorts to increase aordable access . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62

Company ranking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63

Intellectual property . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64

Local production . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67

Research and development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70

Quality o medicines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70

Figures

1. Availability o selected generic medicines in public and privatehealth acilities in low- and lower-middle-income countries, 2007-2012 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

2. Ratio o consumer prices to international reerence prices orselected lowest-priced generic medicines in public and privatehealth acilities in low- and lower-middle-income countries, 2007-2012 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62

3. Number o days o wage income needed by the lowest-paid

unskilled government worker to pay or a 30-day treatment orhypercholesterolaemia, 2007-2012 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63

Tables

1. Selected cases o the use o compulsory licence and government-use declarations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67

2. Selected voluntary licensing agreements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68

Access to new technologies

Access to inormation and communication technologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73

Te development impact o IC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77International eorts to increase access . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78


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viii The Global Partnership for Development: The Challenge We Face

rends in regulation o the IC sector . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79

Te role o e-government . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79

Access to climate-related technologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80

Disaster risk management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81Figures

1. Global trends in access to IC, 2000-2013 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74

2. Mobile cellular subscriptions and Internet users in developed anddeveloping countries, 2000-2013 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75

3. Number o mobile cellular subscriptions per 100 inhabitants,2000, 2010 and 2011 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76

4. Number o xed telephone lines per 100 inhabitants, 2000, 2005,2010 and 2011 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77

5. Fixed (wired) broadband and mobile broadband subscriptions in

developed and developing countries, 2008-2013. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 786. Liberalization and reorm trends, 1990-2012 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80

Page


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ix

List o Millennium Development

Goals and Goal 8 targets and indicators

Goals 1 to 7

Goal 1: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger

Goal 2: Achieve universal primary education

Goal 3: Promote gender equality and empower women

Goal 4: Reduce child mortality

Goal 5: Improve maternal health

Goal 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases

Goal 7: Ensure environmental sustainability

Goal 8: Develop a global partnership or development

Targets Indicators

Some of the indicators listed below are monitored separately for the leastdeveloped countries (LDCs), Africa, landlocked developing countries andsmall island developing States.

Target 8.A: Develop urther an open, rule-based,predictable, non-discriminatory trading and nancialsystem

Includes a commitment to good governance,development and poverty reductionbothnationally and internationally

Target 8.B: Address the special needs o the leastdeveloped countries

Includes tari and quota ree access or the leastdeveloped countries exports; enhanced programmeo debt relie or heavily indebted poor countries

(HIPC) and cancellation o ocial bilateral debt; andmore generous ODA or countries committed topoverty reduction

Target 8.C: Address the special needs o landlockeddeveloping countries and small island developingStates (through the Programme o Action or theSustainable Development o Small Island DevelopingStates and the outcome o the twenty-second specialsession o the General Assembly)

Ofcial development assistance (ODA)

8.1 Net ODA, total and to the least developed countries, aspercentage o OECD/DAC donors gross national incomes

8.2 Proportion o total bilateral, sector-allocable ODA o OECD/DACdonors to basic social services (basic education, primary healthcare, nutrition, sae water and sanitation)

8.3 Proportion o bilateral ocial development assistance o OECD/DAC donors that is untied

8.4 ODA received in landlocked developing countries as aproportion o their gross national incomes

8.5 ODA received in small island developing States as a proportiono their gross national incomes

Market access

8.6 Proportion o total developed country imports (by value andexcluding arms) rom developing countries and least developedcountries admitted ree o duty

8.7 Average taris imposed by developed countries on agriculturalproducts and textiles and clothing rom developing countries

8.8 Agricultural support estimate or OECD countries as apercentage o their gross domestic product

8.9 Proportion o ODA provided to help build trade capacity


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Goal 8: Develop a global partnership for development (continued)

Targets Indicators

Target 8.D: Deal comprehensively with the debtproblems o developing countries through nationaland international measures in order to make debtsustainable in the long term

Debt sustainability

8.10 Total number o countries that have reached their HIPC decisionpoints and number that have reached their HIPC completionpoints (cumulative)

8.11 Debt relie committed under HIPC and MDRI Initiatives

8.12 Debt service as a percentage o exports o goods and services

Target 8.E: In cooperation with pharmaceuticalcompanies, provide access to aordable essentialdrugs in developing countries

8.13 Proportion o population with access to aordable essentialdrugs on a sustainable basis

Target 8.F: In cooperation with the private sector,make available the benefts o new technologies,

especially inormation and communications

8.14 Fixed telephone lines per 100 inhabitants

8.15 Mobile cellular subscriptions per 100 inhabitants

8.16 Internet users per 100 inhabitants

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xi

Executive summary

Progress has been made in the past year on a number o commitments, butsignicant backsliding has occurred in other target areas o Millennium Devel-opment Goal (MDG) 8. While there are advances to report in increasing accessto new technologies, in duty-ree access or exports rom developing countriesand, to a lesser extent, in eorts to increase access to more aordable essentialmedicines, the international community is not ully delivering on its commit-

ments to development assistance and to reaching an agreement on development-oriented multilateral trade. Te dierences in directions taken and the disparityin results weaken the cohesiveness o the global partnership. As many developingcountries are redoubling their eorts to accelerate the progress towards achievingthe MDGs by 2015, more policy coherence and consistency is needed within theglobal partnership to support the endeavours o developing countries.

The global partnership or developmentin retrospect

In the atermath o the global economic crisis, the political momentum oradvancing international development cooperation seems to have waned. Teinternational community must take this into account when redesigning a globalpartnership that would enjoy endorsement and enthusiasm by all parties ater2015.

For hal a century, the international community has used the concept opartnership to drat a compact o commitments on promoting development. Ithas entailed making conditional nancial transers and providing technical assis-tance to developing countries, granting trade preerences, and according specialand dierential treatment. By the turn o the century, however, this model othe global partnership was showing signs o wear, and Member States gatheredin 2000 at the Millennium Summit to reinorce outstanding commitments. In2002, a dierent kind o global agreement was orged in the Monterrey Consen-sus, where countries jointly made development policy commitments. A decadehas passed since the Monterrey conerence and almost 15 years since the Millen-nium Summit. Te dose o political momentum injected in the early 2000s nowneeds to be revitalized.

An eective global partnership needs to embrace a shared vision, embodyan acceptable sharing o obligations and responsibilities, and entail a packageo commitments attractive enough or partners to join. A policy package needsto address the most salient concerns today, potentially including: strengthening

international cooperation in tax matters; strengthening systemic nancial regula-tion; and advancing negotiations to address climate change.


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xii The Global Partnership for Development: The Challenge We Face


Ocial development assistance (ODA) suered a second consecutive year ocontraction in 2012 or the rst time since 1997, alling 4 per cent, down to$125.9 billion, rom $134 billion in 2011. Sixteen o the 25 Development Assis-

tance Committee (DAC) members decreased their ODA, owing mainly to scalausterity measures. Multilateral ODA and humanitarian aid ell by about 6 percent and 11 per cent, respectively. Bilateral ODA increased slightly, by about 1 percent, but bilateral ODA to least developed countries (LDCs) ell 12.8 per cent inreal terms, to about $26 billion in 2012. Preliminary data show that bilateral aidrom DAC donors to sub-Saharan Arica ell or the rst time since 2007, withassistance totalling $26.2 billion in 2012, a decline o 7.9 per cent in real terms.

Aid to landlocked developing countries (LLDCs) and small island developingStates also ell in 2011.

In 2012, the combined DAC donors ODA was equivalent to 0.29 per cento their combined gross national income (GNI). Tis widened the delivery gap in

reaching the United Nations targetor donor countries to provide 0.7 per cento GNI annuallyrom 0.39 per cent o GNI in 2011 to 0.41 per cent in 2012.Te gap between DAC donors ODA to LDCs and the lower bound o the UnitedNations target o 0.15 per cent has widened to 0.05 per cent o donor GNI.

Te United Nations Conerence on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) inJune 2012 and the OECD-DAC High Level Meeting in December 2012, recog-nized that the ullment o all commitments related to ODA remained crucial.Te Rio+20 outcome document called or an exploration o new partnerships,and innovative sources o nancing to augment and leverage traditional sourceso unds or international cooperation. As a ollow-up to the Fourth High-levelForum on Aid Eectiveness in Busan, Republic o Korea, in 2011, a GlobalPartnership or Eective Development Cooperation was established in June 2012as an ad hoc platorm or political dialogue, accountability and mutual learningon eective development cooperation. Subsequent discussions have envisioned apartnership, including through the Development Cooperation Forum, to pro-mote more eective, more inclusive and orward-looking international coopera-tion in support o eorts to eradicate global poverty, achieve all the MDGs andhelp implement a post-2015 development agenda.

Policy recommendations

y

Donor Governments urgently need to reverse the two-year contraction oODA and make greater eorts to reach the United Nations targets, especially

in assistance to LDCs

y Governments rom both developed and developing countries should increasetransparency in the delivery, predictability and use o development assistance

y All stakeholders should strengthen their processes or coordination and coop-eration at country and global levels, as outlined in the Global Partnership or

Eective Development

Market access

Ater more than a decade, the Doha Round o global trade negotiations remainsstalled. However, the Ninth Ministerial Conerence o the World rade Organi-


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xiiiExecutive summary

zation (WO), which will take place in Bali, Indonesia, in December 2013, willbe an occasion to break the impasse by dealing specically with trade acilitation,issues in agriculture negotiations, and a basket o development issues, includinga package or LDCs.

Meanwhile, developed and developing countries have been creating nar-

rower regional trade agreements (RAs), which may pose a urther challenge toglobal trade discussions. Tey represent an overlapping system o bilateral andmulti-country ree trade agreements, which depart rom the general rule o

WO calling or each member to treat the trade o all other members equally.World trade grew at a slower rate in 2012 than in 2011, refecting slug-

gish economic growth in developed countries. rade o developing countries andtransition economies outpaced the global economy. Te developing-country shareo world trade rose to 44.4 per cent in 2012, although shares or Arica and theLDCs remained at 3.5 per cent and 1.1 per cent, respectively.

In 2012, Group o wenty (G20) members rearmed their pledge not toimpose protectionist measures and have largely resisted creating new trade bar-riers. Despite mounting unemployment and the high cost o transerring remit-tances in developed countries, fows o remittances to developing countries grewto $401 billion in 2012, a 5.3 per cent increase over 2011.

Duty-ree market access increased to 83 per cent and 80 per cent o LDCand developing-country exports as a whole in 2011, respectively. Average tarisimposed on developing countries remained relatively high in agriculture, textilesand clothing. Agricultural subsidies in developed countries amounted to $259billion in 2012, which represented 18.6 per cent o gross arm receipts.

Developing-country exporters continue to struggle to achieve compliancewith sanitary, phytosanitary and technical requirements. otal donor commit-

ments to the Aid or rade initiative declined 14 per cent in 2011, to $ 41.5 bil-lion, with Arica being the region most aected by the decline.


y Reach a development-oriented conclusion o the Doha Round o trade nego-tiations

y Implement the commitment to eliminate all orms o agricultural export sub-sidies, and to provide duty-ree, quota-ree market access to LDC products

y Increase support or strengthening productive sectors in developing countries

Debt sustainability

otal external and Government debt in developing countries as proportions oGDP increased slightly in 2012, to 22.3 per cent and 45.9 per cent, respectively.External debt service increased rom 24.9 per cent o exports in 2011 to 27.1 percent in 2012. While these ratios are relatively low, they mask the extent to whichsome developing countries, particularly Caribbean countries, remain criticallyindebted or are at signicant risk o debt distress. Most developing countries s-cal balances have improved, but the pace o scal adjustment and its impact onsocial outlays is set to increase in the period 2013-2015. On the other hand, the

current-account balances o low- and lower-middle-income countries continueto worsen.


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xiv The Global Partnership for Development: The Challenge We Face

As o April 2013, 35 countries out o 39 highly indebted poor countries(HIPCs) had reached the completion point. While the link between debt relieand poverty-reducing expenditure is dicult to demonstrate, data show thatHIPCs have increased poverty-reducing expenditures as their debt service pay-ments have declined.

In recent years, debt crises have been signicant. Te goal o the adjustmentprocess in sovereign debt crises has oten been dened as stemming panickedcapital outfows and restoring market condence in lending to indebted coun-tries. Eorts to reorm the architecture or debt workouts yielded little progressand the steps that have been taken have not led to timely or cost-eective debtcrisis resolution. Te inability to adequately resolve excessive sovereign debt is athreat to global nancial stability, and there is a need to explore the establishmento an international mechanism or early, cooperative and comprehensive resolu-tion o sovereign debt crises.


The international community should:

y Assure timely debt relie or critically indebted developing countries so as notto impede progress on the MDGs

y Develop and disseminate techniques or eective debt management, takinginto account the social dimension o debt sustainability

y Convoke an international working group to examine options or enhancing theinternational architecture or debt restructuring


Access to aordable essential medicines in developing countries remains costly,insuciently available and oten unaordable. Essential medicines were avail-able in only 57 per cent o public and 65 per cent o private health acilities in2012. Prices o medicines are about 3.3 to 5.7 times the international reerenceprices and many treatment regimens are priced ar above the WHO aordabilitybenchmark.

Innovation without expanded access to the ruits o innovation leads tounderservicing o public health needs, while increasing access to the existingpharmacopoeia without encouraging the development o new medicines andtechnologies does not address emerging threats to health. Developing-country

access to aordable medicines can be acilitated by certain fexibilities allowedunder the Agreement on the rade-related Aspects o Intellectual PropertyRights (RIPS). Te issuance o compulsory licences has proven to reduce theprice o medicines.


y Pharmaceutical companies should make essential medicines more aordableand, through innovation, develop new medicines most needed by developing

countries

y Developing-country Governments should make essential medicines more

available in their public acilities


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xvExecutive summary


In recent years, there has been an explosion in access to inormation and com-munication technologies (IC). Te number o mobile cellular subscriptions inthe world has risen to 6.8 billion, and active mobile broadband subscriptions havegrown more than 30 per cent annually over the last three years. Meanwhile, thenumber o xed telephone lines is continuing its decline since 2006.

Te growth in the number o individuals using the Internet in developingcountries continues to outpace that in developed countries, growing at 12 percent in 2013 compared with 5 per cent in the developed countries. Te penetra-tion rates in Internet use in developing countries have also increased, to 31 percent in 2013 rom 25 per cent in 2011. IC services continued to become more

aordable in 2011, but the dierence in costs between developed and developingcountries is still substantial.

Adequate regulation o the IC sector is essential or increasing access toIC services. While independent regulators were established in 160 countries bythe end o 2012, the number o telecommunications privatizations has slowedover the past ve years, partly due to the global nancial crisis and the simplica-tion o licensing regimes.

echnology transer is essential to addressing the impact o climate change.At the eighteenth session o the Conerence o Parties to the United NationsFramework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Doha in December2012, States parties endorsed the establishment o new institutions and means

to deliver scaled-up climate nance and technology to developing nations. Morestill needs to be done to provide access to new disaster-mitigating technology,particularly or vulnerable small island developing States.


y Governments o developing countries should accelerate eorts to increaseaccess to and aordability o ICT

y Governments o developing countries should continue to increase the use oICT applications to improve the provision o services, especially those with a

direct impact on the MDGs

y Governments and research institutes o developed and developing countriesshould increase the transer o climate changerelated and disaster prepared-

ness/mitigation technologies to developing countries

y Developing countries are encouraged to make use o the TRIPS fexibilities inorder to increase access to more aordable essential medicines


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The global partnership or

development in retrospect

In this report, the MDG Gap ask Force presents the most recent data and policydiscussions on the specic dimensions o international cooperation that havebeen brought together and identied as Goal 8 o the Millennium Develop-ment Goals (MDGs). Te ask Force was created by the Secretary-General othe United Nations in 2007 to assess progress in realizing the international com-mitments covered by Goal 8 and thereby to help the international community

ocus attention on how to close the gap between commitment and delivery. As thereport highlights, there has been urther progress on a number o commitmentsin the past year, but signicant backsliding in others. Indeed, a redoubling oeort is required to realize internationally shared goals.

A particular concern is that the political momentum necessary or advanc-ing international development cooperation seems to have weakened. Te initialimpetus or that momentum can be traced back to the United Nations Mil-lennium Summit thirteen years ago at the hopeul opening o the new cen-tury. oday, the atermath o the global nancial crisis o 2008 and the GreatRecession that ollowed have contributed to a global policy context that has notaccommodated the agreed ambitions o multilateral trade negotiations or the

commitments o development assistance by a number o countries.While there has been an element o Governments turning inward to

address their nancial and economic diculties, they have, at the same time,ully maintained their outward orientation. For example, in the trade arena,starting in 2011, the European Union (EU) relaxed the conditions under whichdeveloping countries could gain preerential access to the EU market. On theother hand, a conscious eort was needed, led by the Group o 20 (G20), to limitthe degree to which its member countries added protectionist barriers to theirtrade policies, a largely but not completely successul exercise.

In the case o ocial development assistance (ODA), the United Kingdomo Great Britain and Northern Ireland has consistently pursued its commitment

to raise its volume o aid towards the United Nations target o 0.7 per cent ogross national income (GNI), despite adopting an aggressive domestic austeritypolicy. In addition, Denmark, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway and Swe-den continue to provide 0.7 per cent or more o their GNI as ODA. However,these ve countries accounted or only 11 per cent o total aid provided by themember countries o the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) in 2012;even adding in United Kingdom assistance during 2012 would bring the shareto only 22 per cent.

It seems possible that actors other than the Great Recession have damp-ened the commitment o many developed countries to realizing the MDGs. Te

decline in ODA is the most striking evidence o this, especially because o theleadership role o the aid ministries represented in the DAC. Tese had been


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2 The Global Partnership for Development: The Challenge We Face

instrumental in laying out the original ramework or the MDGs in 1996, draw-ing on the commitments o United Nations conerences in the 1990s, and thensuccessully promoting them to the international community, including throughtheir adoption in the Millennium Declaration.1 As the target year or achievingthe MDGs is still two years away, and as the need or ODA has not diminishedbut will indeed grow with the emerging post-2015 development agenda, it is timeto increase, not reduce, ODA.

I the long-run political commitment to the global development partner-ship is in act eroding, the international community must take that into accountin redesigning the global partnership or the years ollowing 2015. Care must betaken to construct a ramework that is ully consistent with the emerging require-ments o all parties so that it enjoys widespread endorsement and, indeed, enthu-siasm. Further, the commitments in the compact need to be monitored eectivelyand ully so as to give reliable signals to international accountability orums. Teensuing sections thus seek to draw attention rst to issues o measurement and

then to the challenge o mobilizing the political commitment needed in order torealize the uture we want or all.

Lessons rom monitoring Goal 8

Publicly monitoring progress in realizing the MDGs became a notable exercisein inter-agency cooperation.2 It has been measured statistically each year in theUnited NationsMillennium Development Goals Reportand assessed annually inthe Global Monitoring Report, jointly produced by the International MonetaryFund (IMF) and the World Bank, as well as in various other publications andstudies produced in the United Nations system and by civil society organizations.

As part o this process, each edition o theMDG Gap ask Force Reportcontinues to ocus the international communitys attention on the progress andshortalls in the implementation o the developed-country commitments to theglobal partnership or development. Since the rst publication o this Reportin2008, it has been increasingly appreciated that some actors had been overlookedand should be added to the indicators, and that implementation o additionalcommitments made during the decade should also be monitored. Te ask Forcehas thus added indicators to its monitoring as warranted, while maintainingits coverage o the ocial MDG 8 indicators created at the start o the decade(box 1).

1 Organization or Economic Cooperation and Development, Te DAC: 50 Years, 50Highlights(Paris, 2010), box 4.

2 A working group drawn rom the United Nations system, including the InternationalMonetary Fund and the World Bank, as well as rom the Development AssistanceCommittee (DAC), came together under the auspices o the Oce o the Secretary-General to develop a set o indicators, which were rst published, along with the goalsand targets, in the annex to the road map report o 2001 (A/56/326). A subsequentinter-agency working group urther examined the indicators and in 2003 the UnitedNations Development Group published the denitive set in Indicators or Monitoringthe Millennium Development Goals: Denitions, Rationale, Concepts and Sources(UnitedNations publication, Sales No. E.03.XVII.18). Te Inter-agency and Expert Group onMillennium Development Goal Indicators revised this list in 2007 and it has been

used since 2008 (a periodically updated online technical handbook on the indicators isavailable rom http://mdgs.un.org/unsd/mi/wiki/MainPage.ashx).


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3The global partnership for development in retrospect

Box 1

Evolution o indicators monitored by the Task Force

The initial set o indicators or monitoring Goal 8, which are reproduced in the

ront matter o this publication, has served as a ramework or the MDG Gap TaskForce. However, the Task Force realized that additional detail was warranted in

some cases.


The Task Force tracked delivery o the ocial development assistance (ODA)

pledges through the target year o 2010 that had been announced at the Group

o Eight (G8) Summit in Gleneagles, Scotland, in 2005. The Task Force has also

regularly reported on progress made towards realizing the aid eectiveness

goals o the 2005 Paris Declaration and its 2008 Accra ollow up through their

2010 target year. For example, it has monitored implementation o the pledged

mutual accountability o donors and recipients. Indeed, the ODA chapter o this

report continues to monitor eorts to strengthen aid eectiveness. In addition,

although outside the ormal MDG commitments, the growing signicance oSouth-South cooperation and the increased role o non-governmental donors

have also been highlighted.

Market access (trade)

Besides the mandated indicators, the Task Force has regularly reported on

changes in tari peaks and tari escalation in agricultural goods and other

products o importance to developing countries, as well as non-tari meas-

ures with discriminatory restrictive impact. The reports have also tracked

developing-country trade patterns, highlighting diversication o export mar-

kets but with continued dependence o many developing countries on a ew

commodity exports, leaving them still highly vulnerable to trade shocks. In

addition, ollowing pledges by the Group o Twenty (G20) to avoid protectionist

measures in response to the global nancial crisis, the Task Force has annually

reported on their monitoring, as well as the availability o trade nancing, which

had been hurt by the crisis. As the G20 committed in 2011 to reduce the charges

or transerring worker remittances, the Task Force began to report on the issue in

2012. The reports have also tracked trade policy negotiations and discussions, or

example, refecting concerns about potential adverse eects o climate-linked

trade measures.

Debt sustainability

The Task Force added to the initial indicators in order to strengthen advance

warning o emerging debt diculties, drawing in particular on the periodic

International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank assessments o debt risks o

countries classied as low income. It has also monitored the ratio o debt to grossdomestic product (GDP), the share o short-term debt in total external debt and

current accounts in the balance o external payments, as well as work by the IMF

and World Bank on improving the methodology o debt sustainability assess-

ments. While the original indicators ocused on implementation o the HIPC Initi-

ative, the Task Force has monitored other debt-relie processes and international

discussions about the creation o an international debt workout mechanism.


As the mandated indicator was quite broad, the Task Force has monitored access

to and quality o selected paediatric and adult medicines in public and private

health acilities. Additionally, the Task Force has reported World Health Organ-

ization eorts to track the impact o high prices, including by estimating the


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It needs to be stressed, however, that Goal 8 did not cover all aspects othe global partnership or development, whose scope was dened by the GeneralAssembly in the 2005 World Summit Outcome to include the commitmentsmade in the Millennium Declaration, the Monterrey Consensus on Financing orDevelopment and the Johannesburg Plan o Implementation o the World Sum-mit on Sustainable Development (General Assembly resolution 60/1, para. 20).While the Outcome signicantly expanded the potential scope o the monitoringexercise, in the subsequent revision o the MDG indicators, no change was madeto those indicators pertaining to Goal 8.

While some additional indicators have thus been monitored over time bythe ask Force, it was also deemed imperative that once the monitoring o spe-

cic targets and indicators had been accepted, they should not be discarded orsubstantively altered. Changing an indicator could amount to redening thecommitment that the indicator was set up to monitor, undermining the intentiono the exercise itsel.

However, it was also possible that a xed indicator could lose reliabilityas time passed. A case in point has been aired recently by a ormer Chair othe DAC.3 o qualiy as ODA, a donors expenditure must be or a develop-ment purpose and take the orm o a grant or a loan with a sucient degree oconcessionality. Changes in the global nancial marketlower interest rates, inparticularhave made the original test o concessionality obsolete, infating the

3 See Letter to the Financial imes rom Richard Manning, 9 April 2013.

Box 1

Evolution o indicators monitored by the Task Force (continued)

proportion o the population that would be pushed below international pov-

erty lines i households had to purchase necessary medicines privately. Theintention o the aordable medicines target, however, was not measurement

per se but increased access in cooperation with pharmaceutical companies.

The Task Force has thus monitored international developments, such as the

search or and introduction o innovative mechanisms to nance purchases,

new partnerships between stakeholders, and new mechanisms, including

the creation o patent pools, licensing agreements, and the use o fexibili-

ties and public health saeguards in the World Trade Organization agreement

on Trade-related Aspects o Intellectual Property Rights; it has also moni-

tored developments in developing countries, including local production.


While the technologies target is quite broad in principle, the mandated indica-

tors reerred only to elements o inormation and communications technolo-gies (ICT). Besides tracking the extent o access, as requested, the Task Force has

reported data on the prices o ICT services by region, since high prices prevent

greater access, or example, in the use o the Internet. As the target called or gov-

ernment cooperation with the private sector, the Task Force has also reported

trends in regulation o the sector and the percentage o countries with compet-

ing Internet service providers, as well as ICT applications in government services,

in mobilizing inormation or disaster risk management and in addressing cli-

mate change. The Task Force has also selectively monitored negotiations and

policies in climate policy nancing.


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measured amount o ODA disbursed. In sum, ODA today does not represent thesame donor eort as it did earlier, despite its being measured in a consistent way.

While there have been debates throughout the years on what to include orexclude in ODA, the international community has maintained condence in theDAC denition. Te DAC is currently revisiting its methodology or dening

ODA and whether ODA is even the most relevant category o ocial develop-ment support that should be reported to the world.4

Origins o the global partnership or development

Te international community has long used the concept o partnership to drat acompact o commitments on promoting development. Te compacts, adopted ina sequence o international declarations, have embodied sets o international tradeand nancial policy commitments by developed countries that were joined withdeveloping-country commitments to pursue policies or more enabling domes-

tic environments, so that increased opportunities would become developmentachievements. Such constellations o policies have been deemed partnerships sinceat least the 1969 publication oPartners in Development, the report o the Com-mission on International Development headed by the ormer Canadian PrimeMinister, Lester Pearson. Commission members met with some 70 developing-country Governments and with most DAC member Governments and producedtheir report in less than a year, emphasizing its urgency. Te Commission hadbeen created in 1968 by World Bank President Robert McNamara, in order to

elaborate an [international] aid strategy based on a convincing rationale,that could be used to attack eectively the wariness o will so increasinglyevident. For various reasons, some having to do with domestic problems

and balance o payments diculties, some relating to the publics judg-ments about waste and corruption, a number o the major donor countrieswere decreasing their oreign aid appropriations. In doing so, they were (andare) endangering the very viability o an international political idea that,until 1961, supported a rapidly increasing fow o concessional developmentnance rom the richer to the poorer countries.5

Te Commission proposed that donors provide 0.7 per cent o grossnational product (GNP) as ODA,6 to be achieved by 1975 or shortly thereater,but in no case later than 1980.7 In addition, the report observed that eective

4 Te DAC work programme spans two years, beginning in 2013. See Organizationor Economic Cooperation and Development, Initial roadmap or improved DACmeasurement and monitoring o external development nance (DCD/DAC(2013)12),20 March 2013.

5 Peter M. Kilborn, as cited in Pages rom World Bank history: Te Pearson Commis-sion, available rom http://go.worldbank.org/JYCU8GEWA0 (accessed 14 April 2013).

6 Tis was not the origin o the concept o an ocia l development assistance (ODA) tar-get, as the World Council o Churches had circulated a statement to all United Nationsdelegations in 1958 proposing a target or grants and concessional loans o 1 per cent onational income. See Helmut Fhrer, Te story o ocial development assistance: Ahistory o the Development Assistance Committee and the Development CooperationDirectorate in dates, names and gures, OECD/GD/(94)67 (Paris: Organization orEconomic Cooperation and Development, 1996), p. 7.

7 See Commission on International Development (Pearson Commission), Partners inDevelopment(New York: Praeger, 1969), page 149.


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partnership requires that the actions o both sides be subject to scrutiny and itcalled or supportive trade and investment policies, arguing that inconsideratetrade policies could nulliy the eects o increased aid.8

Te Pearson Commission thus highlighted several central and continuingaspects o the global development partnership. First, it was donor-driven, addressed

primarily to donor Governments who were being asked to nance the partnership.Second, it recognized that numerous policies in developed and developing coun-tries impact the development trajectory o developing countries, not only thoseunder the responsibility o aid ministries. Indeed, developing countries had them-selves pressed this latter point on the international community since at least theearly 1960s, calling or international attention to their trade policy needs, whichthey elt were not being addressed in negotiations under the General Agreementon aris and rade (GA). Developed countries accepted this point, leading tothe initial United Nations Conerence on rade and Development (UNCAD) in1964.9 UNCAD would later provide the orum to negotiate a generalized systemo preerences or developing-country exports and several international commod-ity price stabilization agreements, and the IMF would introduce a compensatorynancing acility or quick-disbursing loans to developing countries experienc-ing unexpected export earnings shortalls or surges in the cost o ood imports.UNCAD also initiated the call to pay special policy attention to developingcountries in more dicult situations, classied in the second session o the coner-ence in 1968 (resolution 24(II)) as the least developed countries (LDCs). GA,meanwhile, adopted a set o principles on trade and development in 1965 thatintroduced non-reciprocity into the negotiations, which is to say that developingcountries participating in trade liberalization negotiations would not be expectedto open their markets to the same extent as developed countries or in a manner

inconsistent with their individual development, nancial and trade needs.10

Te United Nations General Assembly also played an active role in thepartnership, serving as the global coherence orum on economic and social aswell as political matters. Te Assembly thus began to look systematically at theglobal requirements or promoting development. Tat exercise was undertaken atthe technical level by the United Nations Committee or Development Planning(CDP), chaired by the joint recipient o the rst Nobel Prize in Economic Sci-ences, Jan inbergen. It proposed that international cooperation or developmentor the decade o the 1970s be ramed within a consistent set o targets or growtho output and per capita income o the developing countries, along with targetsor the growth o their agriculture and industry, imports and exports, and nan-

cial transers, backed by policies in developed and developing countries to realizethose targets. Te report o the CDP was considered by a preparatory committeeo the General Assembly, which had been ormed to negotiate an InternationalDevelopment Strategy, which was adopted by the General Assembly in 1970.11

8 Kilborn, op. cit.

9 United Nations, Te History o UNCAD, 1964-1984(United Nations publication,Sales No. E.85.II.D.6), pp. 8-10.

10 Alexander Keck and Patrick Low, Special and dierential treatment in WO: Why,when and how? World rade Organization Staf Working Paper ERSD-2004-03, May2004, p. 4.

11 See Mahuzur Rahman, World Economic Issues at the United Nations: Hal a Century oDebate(Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2002), chap. 7.


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Tis strategy included a call or special measures or LDCs, to which the CDPmade concrete recommendations in 1971 recognizing their specic vulnerabilities.

Some Governments embraced selected elements o the Strategy with adegree o enthusiasm, while a ew Governments entered reservations on specicparagraphs. Nevertheless, the world had or the rst time laid out a compre-

hensive set o projections, and policies to achieve them. Tis also laid a specicoundation or international partnership.12

Although the world economy o the 1970s turned out nothing like whatthe General Assembly had oreseen, the international community negotiated twomore International Development Strategies, one or the 1980s and another or the1990s. In each successive case, however, there seemed to be less clear-cut politi-cal commitment to their implementation. Long-term economic projections were(and are) highly uncertain exercises and are no longer in avour. Te process wasnally supplanted by the Millennium Declaration in 2000, which was compre-hensive in a dierent sense by addressing issues o peace and security, develop-ment and poverty eradication, the environment, human rights, and strengtheningthe United Nations itsel (General Assembly resolution 55/2).

The global partnership since theMillennium Declaration

For hal a century, as we have seen, the partnership or development entaileddeveloped countries making nancial transers and providing technical assis-tance to developing countries, to which they also granted trade preerences andaccorded special and dierential treatment in the give and take o global tradenegotiations. Te oers o assistance were generally accompanied by donor policyadvice, oten coordinated at the country level by international nancial institu-tions through ormal conditionality agreements.

By the time o the Millennium Declaration, however, this model o theglobal partnership was showing signs o wear. On the one hand, developed-country policy advice in the 1990s had been increasingly shaped by what can besaid with the benet o hindsight was oten an excessive aith in the eciencyo markets, especially nancial markets, leading many developing countries intounnecessary economic crises. On the other hand, donors increasingly rethoughtthe objectives o their assistance, which ocused more and more on pressing socialconcerns, such as the eradication o poverty and gender inequality, while boosting

health and education.13

Donors thus directed some o their attention away rominvesting in inrastructure, agriculture and other undamental economic sec-tors that had previously been the ocus o development cooperation, increasingly

12 Te strategy included a call or special measures or least developed countries (LDCs)and the Committee or Development Planning (CDP) was charged with dening whichcountries should be included in the group. In 1971, the General Assembly approvedthe list (resolution 2728(XXVI)) and the DAC agreed to pay special attention to LDCs(Frher, op. cit., p. 23); in time, the General Agreement on arris and rade (GA)codied the legal basis or trade preerences or LDCs and other countries in the 1979adoption o the enabling clause (Keck and Low, op. cit., p. 5).

13 See Organization or Economic Cooperation and Development/Development Assis-

tance Committee (OECD/DAC), Shaping the 21st century: the contribution o develop-ment cooperation (Paris, May 1996).


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leaving the nancing o capital ormation in these sectors to private internationalsources, sometimes in active partnership with developing-country Governments,sometimes as oreign direct investment and sometimes as private nancing opublic investment.

As a result, it was not out o place in 2000 to ask what sort o global part-

nership or development might be inspired by the Millennium Declaration. Norwas it impertinent to ask to what extent Governments would honour their com-mitments. Te decades-old practice o announcing a global partnership meantthat partners would eel political pressure to make pledges to each other. Notall o the pledges would be carried out. Moreover, the scope o the Declarationas adopted at the Millennium Summit was very broad and ocused on reinorc-ing outstanding commitments to goals and targets drawn rom United Nationsconerences in the 1990s.

In December 2000, the General Assembly asked the Secretary-General tospell out how the Declarations commitments should be achieved and to prioritizedevelopments place in the ongoing global policy dialogue (resolution 55/162). Inresponse, the Secretary-General prepared a road map report or ullling thecommitments (A/56/326). It addressed the ull range o issues in the Declara-tion, but it also contained an annex listing the goals and targets drawn romthe Millennium Declaration, as well as speciying a set o statistical indicatorsto measure progress in achieving those targets. Tus, a strategy was adopted toencourage Governments to honour their Millennium pledges by quantiyingthe commitments, monitoring their implementation and then publicizing theresults. As Governments agreed to be monitored in their support o the MDGs,this approach promised renewed lie in the global partnership.

Nevertheless, aid fows did not begin to refect this promise until a dierent

kind o global agreement was orged. At the International Conerence on Financ-ing or Development in Monterrey, Mexico, in 2002,14 Governments jointlymade a wide range o policy commitmentscommitments that were broader inscope than those captured in Goal 8, but that shared their spiritwhich wereagreed in the Monterrey Consensus o 2002.

Indeed, policy steps were taken soon ater to implement the Monter-rey commitments. Tese included the pledges by major providers o ODA atthe Summit o the Group o Eight (G8) in Gleneagles, Scotland, in 2005, aswell as the intensied international work to increase aid eectiveness led bythe DAC. Te commitments were also evident in the Multilateral Debt RelieInitiative o 2005, which substantially deepened the relie made available to

a group o heavily indebted poor countries (HIPCs), and in what would turnout to be intricate negotiations to honour the pledge to strengthen the voiceand participation o developing countries in decision-making at the IMF andthe World Bank. And, while negotiated reductions in barriers to imports romdeveloping countries were oten stubbornly elusive, the multiple attempts toadvance those negotiations nonetheless demonstrated a signicant commitmentin eort. Meanwhile, many developing countries pursued cautious domesticpolicies on monetary, scal and exchange-rate management (building substan-tial buers o ocial reserves in many cases). Moreover, interested developed

14 See Report o the International Conerence on Financing or Development, Monterrey,Mexico, 18-22 March 2002 (A/CONF.198/11), chap. 1, resolution 1, annex.


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and developing countries began to devise innovative proposals or mobilizinginternational resources or development.15

Towards a more efective global partnership

or developmentIt is important to recall the unique intergovernmental process that led to theMonterrey Consensus. Developing-country representatives at the United Nations,joined by a number o developed-country partners, had begun to address a num-ber o concerns, including ailures in an international economic system in whosegovernance developing countries played little part. United Nations diplomatstook a very pragmatic approach, engaging their own nance ministries and theirintergovernmental representatives at other international institutions, attractingas well the interest o some business and civil society stakeholders. Te processbegan in the Second Committee o the General Assembly and led to an important

degree o political momentum around a package o policy initiatives o interest toa large number o Governments, albeit one that took ve years to reach ruition(1997-2002).16

Te result, as noted above, was a set o commitments upon which Govern-ments and institutions immediately began to act. Te work was not everywheresuccessul but it was everywhere serious. In act, the Monterrey Consensus wassimultaneously a new collective push or the traditional partnership or develop-ment (in particular in the ocus on ODA, poor country debt cancellation andaid eectiveness) and the rst time Governments meeting at the United Nationsagreed to bring specic systemic shortcomings to the responsible internationalbodies or action. It was also agreed that progress in realizing the commitmentsand challenges embodied in the Consensus and consideration o urther policyneeds would be reviewed in a holistic manner by representatives o Governmentand international institutions who specialize in development, nance and tradeduring annual meetings o the Economic and Social Council, and biennially inhigh-level dialogues in the General Assembly. Te commitments would also besubject to review in subsequent international conerences, one o which has beenheld thus ar, in 2008 in Doha, Qatar.17

It is now more than a decade since the Monterrey Conerence and almost15 years since the Millennium Summit. Te dose o political momentum injectedin the early 2000s now needs a boost. How might it be generated?

Te answer to such a question may rst lie in asking what the word part-nership means. Te word describes a relationship voluntarily entered into toachieve shared goals. Tere is no presumption in the word itsel that the relation-ship is an equal one. Some partners may have more o a stake in the partner-ship and receive more o its benets, and some partners may have more power

15 See United Nations, World Economic and Social Survey 2012: In Search o New Develop-ment Finance(United Nations publication, Sales No. E.12.II.C.1).

16 See Barry Herman, Te politics o inclusion in the Monterrey process, DESA WorkingPaper No. 23 (S/ESA/2006/DWP/23), April 2006.

17 See United Nations, Report o the Follow-up International Conerence on Financing

or Development to Review the Implementation o the Monterrey Consensus, Doha,Qatar, 29 November-2 December 2008 (A/CONF.212/7).


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over the partnerships decision-making than others. Nevertheless, it is generallyunderstood that each o the partners has certain rights as well as obligations tothe other partners and each o the partners expects to benet rom it. An eectiveglobal partnership thus needs to embrace a shared vision, embody an acceptablesharing o obligations and responsibilities, and entail a package o commitmentsattractive enough or the partners to join it.

Ater a common vision is developed, an eective global partnership needsto embrace an attractive yet politically deliverable deal or realizing the vision.An underlying principle o the partnershipor condition necessary or the part-nership to be eectivemight be stated as shared global governance needs tosupport eective national governance. A second principle might be that Govern-ments must oer some prospect o ully implementing agreed reorm agendas (orexample, as regards the global nancial architecture and its governance) and cred-ible advances in global negotiations (in trade and climate change, or example).A third principle might be to recognize that the citizens o the world understand

that anything less will not warrant serious attention.In the end, only ocial stakeholders can make the commitments in a globalpartnership and be held accountable or them in intergovernmental orums,although specic partnerships between ocial and non-governmental enti-ties may be orged as part o the implementation o global agreements. Indeed,one aspect o the Johannesburg Plan o Implementation was to inspire multipleimplementing partnerships.18 In addition, the Secretary-General has promotedspecic implementing partnerships, in particular, to advance achievement o theMDGs.19 Tus, an operating principle or strengthening the global partnershipor development should be (and is) to provide space or appropriate participationo all relevant stakeholders.

As noted above, the Monterrey Consensus embraced a broader globalpartnership or development than had been contained in Goal 8 o the MDGs.Recommitting to the policy actions in that Consensus through additional con-crete cooperation steps could rekindle the condence and enthusiasm in the part-nership. Te policy package needs to address the most salient concerns today,among which the ollowing might be considered:

One issue with strong current global economic ocus is strengthening inter-national cooperation in tax matters, which has thus ar mainly involvedintensied cross-border cooperation among developed countries. axpay-ers everywhere who meet their obligations rightly want stronger eorts toprevent tax evasion and avoidance, as well as more eective international

cooperation to ght corruption and return illicitly removed unds to theircountries o origin.

Following cases o abuse o the right o labourers to work in sae conditions,people around the world would welcome a global commitment by Govern-ments to jointly monitor and maintain minimum actory saety standards.National and voluntary eorts have ailed in the ace o the global com-petition that creates pressure to produce at the lowest price no matter the

18 Under the Johannesburg process and its ollow up, almost 200 partnerships or sustain-able development have been launched (a complete list is available rom http://sustaina-bledevelopment.un.org/index.php?menu=1500).

19 Te initiative is coordinated by the United Nations Oce or Partnerships (see http://www.un.org/partnerships/).


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human cost. International agreement to enorce minimum standards at thenational level could stop the race to the bottom in policy practice. Teprinciples which hold that developing manuacturing and industry mustbe sustainable and ully respect human rightsand also that they shouldbe resource-ecient in production and consumption, apply appropriate

health and saety standards, and promote a air income distributionareeasy to state. What matters most to citizens, however, is how the principlesare incorporated in actual policies.

Backsliding and delays in strengthening systemic nancial regulation leavethe global economy unnecessarily vulnerable to additional economic shocksemanating rom global nancial centres, thus requiring a strengthenedinternational commitment to address them urther. Moreover, the multi-lateral trade system cannot long survive Governments making alternativead hoc trading arrangements when progress in global trade talks remainselusive. And promises about sustainable development will not be crediblei the world cannot nd a way to seriously advance negotiations to addressclimate change.

Te world canand thereore mustend the outright suering o theroughly one billion people still in extreme poverty. While poverty has mul-tiple causes and requires multiple policies or its eradication, there is muchhere that ODA can eectively address, along with the other developmental,environmental and health imperatives that have been the ocus o ODA ora generation. Moreover, there is much in the work on innovative sourceso international public nancing to build upon, as well as the growinginternational contributions o oundations, South-South cooperation andengagement with the private sector (as noted in chapters to ollow).

Such a multiaceted packageand the oregoing should not be presumedto be that packagemight win widespread support in countries at all stages odevelopment and propel urgent, concerted action by the partner nations thatagree to join together actively to realize it.


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13


Te nancial and economic crisis o 2008-2009 and the post-crisis austerity poli-cies in a number o donor countries have broadly had a negative impact on outlaysor ocial development assistance (ODA), which suered a second consecutiveyear o contraction in 2012. It is encouraging to see that there are exceptions,however, as some donor countries reiterated their intention to ull their com-mitments in support o the eorts o developing countries to achieve the Mil-lennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015 and are increasing aid, despiteadverse budgetary conditions. As the international community moves towards

adopting a post-2015 development agenda, it is crucial that there be an adequatevolume and quality o ODA, complemented by new and innovative orms ointernational public nancing. Recently, disappointing fows signal a challengethat must be addressed; ad hoc and ocial orums on development cooperationprovide opportunities to meet that challenge.

Update o commitments

Te United Nations Conerence on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) in June2012 rearmed the international communitys commitment to achieving theinternationally agreed development goals, including the MDGs.1 It was recog-

nized that the ullment o all commitments related to ODA remained crucial,including the commitments by many developed countries to deliver ODA equiva-lent to 0.7 per cent o gross national income (GNI) by 2015, as well as 0.15 percent to 0.20 per cent o their GNI as ODA or least developed countries (LDCs).

Members o the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) o the Organi-zation or Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) echoed the mes-sage on ODA o the Rio+20 Conerence at their High Level Meeting in Decem-ber 2012. Participating Governments reiterated their commitment to remainingocused on supporting the MDGs and emphasized the ull integration o thesustainability dimension in the post-2015 era.2 It was acknowledged that ODA

is essential as an external nancing resource or development and that it can alsobe eectively combined with and leverage other fows.3 DAC members, includ-ing those who had endorsed the United Nations target o 0.7 per cent o GNI,rearmed their respective ODA targets and agreed to continue to make everyeort to achieve them.

Members o the Group o Eight (G8), meeting at Camp David, UnitedStates o America, in May 2012, committed to ullling outstanding nancial

1 General Assembly resolution 66/288 Te uture we want, 27 July 2012, annex.2 See the Development Assistance Committee High Level Meeting 2012 Communi-

qu, London, 5 December 2012, para. 9, available rom http://www.oecd.org/dachlm/

pressreleasesspeechesstatements.htm.3 Ibid., paras. 15 and 16.

Donors have rearmed

commitments


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pledges made in LAquila, Italy, in July 2009, which they accomplished by yearsend.4 Te G8 will seek to address current and uture global ood security chal-lenges by maintaining strong support, including through bilateral and multi-lateral assistance. Members also agreed to take new steps to accelerate progresstowards ood security and nutrition in Arica and globally.5 Te G8 committed

to launching the New Alliance or Food Security and Nutritionto accelerate thefow o private capital to Arican agriculture, scale up new technologies and otherinnovations that could increase sustainable agricultural productivity throughoutthe continent, and reduce the risk borne by vulnerable economies and communi-ties there.6

In addition, the Group o wenty (G20), meeting in Los Cabos, Mexico, inJune 2012, rearmed its commitment to the global partnership or development,as set out in the MDGs, and welcomed eorts to contribute to this end, includingthrough the Global Partnership or Eective Development Cooperation as agreedat the Fourth High-level Forum on Aid Eectiveness held in Busan, Republico Korea, rom 29 November to 1 December 2011.7 Te G20 also committed tocontinuing its eorts to increase investment in inrastructure, including throughthe multilateral development banks.

Facing new challenges in achieving global sustainable development, moreresources will need to be mobilized at the international level. In view o this, theRio+20 outcome document recommended that United Nations Member Statesdevelop a sustainable nancing strategy that would assess nancing requirementsand explore new partnerships and innovative sources o nancing that couldaugment and be leveraged by traditional sources o unds or international coop-eration. An intergovernmental committee, under the auspices o the General

Assembly, was established in June 2013 to assess nancing needs, consider the

eectiveness, consistency and synergies o existing instruments and rameworks,and evaluate additional initiatives. Te committee would prepare a report propos-ing options or an eective sustainable development nancing strategy to acili-tate the mobilization o resources and their eective use in achieving sustainabledevelopment objectives.

Finally, the ministerial-level Development Committee o the InternationalMonetary Fund and the World Bank endorsed the goals proposed by the WorldBank Group to reduce the incidence o extreme poverty (dened as living on theequivalent o $1.25 per day) to no more than 3 per cent o the worlds populationby 2030 and to oster income growth o the bottom 40 per cent o the populationo every countrygoals that are to be achieved in an environmentally, socially

and economically sustainable manner. Te World Bank Group has proposed astrategy to relentlessly ocus its activities and resources on its poverty-eradicating

4 Te 2012 Report on the LAquila Food Security Initiative reported that 106 per cent othe three-year pledge o $22.24 billion in unds had been ully committed by December2012, although not ully disbursed. Te 2012 Report is available rom http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/202922.pd.

5 See Camp David Declaration, G8 Meeting, Camp David, Maryland, 19-20 May2012, para. 16, available rom http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-oce/2012/05/19/camp-david-declaration.

6 Ibid., para. 18.

7 See G-20 Leaders Declaration, G20 Meeting, Los Cabos, Mexico, 19 June 2012,para. 67, available rom http://www.g20.org/documents/.

An intergovernmental

committee will assess

nancing needs


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15Oicial development assistance

mission, which the Development Committee will consider at its October 2013meeting. In this context, the Committee also called or a robust replenishmento the resources o the International Development Association, the World Banksacility or lending to the poorest countries, consideration o which has recentlybegun.8

ODA delivery and prospects

Pledges notwithstanding, ODA rom DAC countries ell 4 per cent in 2012, ateralling 2 per cent in 2011, measured in 2011 prices and exchange rates.9 Tis isthe rst time since 1997 that ODA has experienced two consecutive years odecline, excluding the period ater the exceptional debt relie to Iraq and Nigeriain 2005 and 2006, respectively. Multilateral ODA, which represented about 30per cent o total ODA, suered the greatest reversal in terms o total amount indollars, alling by about 6 per cent. Bilateral ODAwhich amounted to 63 per

cent o total ODAincreased only slightly, by about 1 per cent. Humanitarianaid ell 15 per cent, while debt-relie grants decreased by about 60 per cent, whichis consistent with the near completion o debt-relie initiatives (gure 1).

otal net ODA fows rom DAC countries amounted to $125.9 billionin 2012 in current dollars, down rom $134 billion in 2011. Sixteen o the 25DAC members decreased their ODA (gure 2). Fiscal austerity in DAC member

8 Communiqu rom the Joint Ministerial Committee o the Boards o Governors othe Bank and the Fund on the ranser o Real Resources to Developing Countries

(Development Committee), Washington, D.C., 20 April 2013, paras. 4-8.9 Measured in dollars, taking into consideration infation and exchange rates in 2011.

ODA has allen or two

consecutive years

Figure 1

Main components o ODA rom DAC members, 2000-2012 (billions of 2011 dollars)

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

160

2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012

Humanitarian aid

Multilateral ODA

Net debt-forgivenessgrants

Bilateral developmentprojects, programmesand technical cooperatio

Aid to basic social services

Source: OECD/DAC data.


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Figure 2

ODA o DAC members, 2000 and 2010-2012 (percentage of GNI)

Source: OECD/DAC data.

DAC Total

Czech Republic

Italy

Greece

Korea, Rep. of

Spain

Japan

United States

Iceland

Portugal

New Zealand

Austria

Canada

Australia

Germany

Switzerland

France

Belgium

Ireland

Finland

United Kingdom

Netherlands

Denmark

Norway

Sweden

Luxembourg2012

2011

2010

2000

0.0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1.0 1.1 1.2


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17Oicial development assistance

countries o the European Union (EU) was the main source o the decrease.ODA rom these countries ell $8.3 billion. Spain halved its aid, and fows romItaly dropped by more than one third, representing a large proportion o this all.Other countries that have made explicit cuts to their aid budget, mostly in thecontext o the nancial crisis, were Greece and Portugal.

Meanwhile, Denmark, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway and Swe-den continue to ull their commitment to the United Nations target (gure 2).In addition, Australia and the Republic o Korea increased their contributionsto $5.4 billion (9 per cent in real terms) and to $1.6 billion (almost 18 per centin real terms), respectively, in 2012. Australia has committed to providing ODAequivalent to 0.37 per cent o its GNI in the period 2013-2014 and 0.5 per centby 2017-2018, while the Republic o Korea aims to reach 0.25 per cent o its GNIby 2015. New Zealand is also striving to increase its ODA to $NZ 600 million,rom its current level o $NZ 562 million (which is equivalent to 0.28 per cent oits GNI, or about $455 million). Iceland, which joined the DAC in March 2013,raised its ODA by almost 6 per cent, to 0.22 per cent o GNI in 2012. In May2013, the Czech Republic also joined the DAC; it provided 0.12 per cent o itsGNI as ODA in 2012.

Although ODA fows rom Italy decreased in 2012 owing to lower levels oaid to reugees rom North Arica and ewer debt-relie grants, it has made a rmcommitment to increase ODA allocations in order to reach the equivalent o 0.15per cent to 0.16 per cent o GNI in 2013. Expected increases rom Switzerlandand the United Kingdom o Great Britain and Northern Ireland are in line withtheir commitments to reach fows equivalent to 0.5 per cent (by 2015) and 0.7per cent (by 2013) o their GNI, respectively.

Te decrease in ODA has meant a urther widening o the gap between the

United Nations target o disbursing 0.7 per cent o donor GNI and the actualfows. In 2012, the combined DAC donors ODA was equivalent to 0.29 per cento their combined GNI (table 1), widening the delivery gap to 0.41 per cent oGNI rom 0.39 per cent in 2011. In order to reach the United Nations target,

which would now amount to $300.6 billion in 2012 dollars, DAC donors wouldneed to increase their annual disbursements by approximately $175 billion.

Aid predictability is highly important to recipient country planning, butis more challenging or donors to achieve in times o crisis and scarce resources.Based on the survey o donors orward spending plans, country programmableaid (CPA) ell in 2012 (to $92.2 billion), consistent with the overall decline in

ODA. In 2013, global CPA is projected to recover with a 9 per cent increase,

and the gap to reach the

United Nations target is

widening urther

Aid is expected to stagnate

in the medium term

Table 1

Delivery gaps in aid commitments by DAC donors, 2011 and 2012

Percent age o GNI Billions o currentdollars

Total ODA United Nations target 0.7 300.6

Delivery in 2012 0.29 125.9

Gap in 2012 0.41 174.7

ODA to LDCs United Nations target 0.150.20 64.786.2

Delivery in 2011 0.10 44.7

Gap in 2011 0.050.10 20.041.5

Source: UN/DESA, based onOECD/DAC data.


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mainly resulting rom the planned increases o a ew larger bilateral developmentproviders, such as Australia, Germany, Italy, Switzerland and the United King-dom, and concessional loans rom multilateral agencies. However, CPA fows arenot expected to grow urther during the period 2014-2016.10

Allocation by region and country

Preliminary data show that bilateral aid rom DAC donors to sub-Saharan Aricawas $26.2 billion in 2012, a decline o 7.9 per cent in real terms. Bilateral aid tothe Arican continent as a whole ell 9.9 per cent, to $28.9 billion in 2012, albeitollowing a 44 per cent increase in 2011 owing to exceptional support to somecountries in North Arica, propelled by support or the Arab Spring. Tis hasbeen the rst all in ODA to Arica since 2007.

Bilateral net ODA to the LDCs ell 12.8 per cent in real terms to about$26 billion in 2012. Including imputed multilateral aid,11 DAC ODA fows to

LDCs had increased minimally rom $44 billion in 2010 to $ 44.7 billion in2011, the latest year or which detailed data are available. As a share o DAC GNI,aid to LDCs has almost doubled since the start o the millennium, rising rom0.06 per cent in 2000 to 0.11 per cent in 2010, but it dropped to 0.10 per centin 2011. Te gap between DAC donors ODA to LDCs and the lower bound othe United Nations target o 0.15 per cent has thus widened to 0.05 per cent odonor GNI (table 1).

Only 10 o the 23 DAC donor countries in 2011 reached the lower boundUnited Nations target or aid to LDCs o 0.15 per cent o GNI in that year (g-ure 3). France had almost reached the target, while Canada, which had reachedthe target in 2010, reduced its ODA to LDCs by 0.04 percentage points, rom

0.15 per cent to 0.11 per cent. Except or Sweden and the United Kingdom, allo the donors that met the lower bou

MDG Gap Task Force Report 2013

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