Global Policy Forum

By Thalif Deen

The U.S.-led war on Iraq is threatening to undermine the U.N.-led global war against poverty. The deadline to achieve some of the U.N.-mandated social and economic goals--including the eradication of disease, illiteracy and poverty--is 2015. "But I think the war on Iraq is a setback because it really distracts attention from the fight against poverty. I am worried," says Eveline Herfkens, the United Nation's executive coordinator for the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and a former Dutch development minister.

The much-ballyhooed MDGs, including a pledge to reduce by half the number of people living on less than a dollar a day, were laid out at a special session of the U.N. General Assembly in October 2000, when 150 world leaders agreed on a 'Millennium Declaration.' The document also included time-bound targets for achieving universal primary education and gender equality and empowerment.

But non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are expressing fears that the war on Iraq--and the projected rise in global military spending--might have a negative fallout on economic development and the flow of development aid.

"Japan has announced it will scale back its U.N. contributions even before the war began. The United States has cut allotment to its own Millennium Challenge Account (geared to provide assistance to developing nations). Global trade volumes and international direct investments both fell in 2001. The war almost assures us these figures are unlikely to climb up in the near future," said Saradha Ramaswamy Iyer of the Third World Network in Kuala Lumpur.

"The long term economic impact of the war--the bad and worse outcomes--can only have disastrous effects, particularly in developing countries," she told IPS.

Those effects are likely to leave the weakest and poorest of developing countries more vulnerable than ever before, she added. Already many countries, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, are "seriously lagging" behind in achieving the (Millennium) goals, and will therefore have to make additional efforts to meet their targets, Herfkens said. The funds for implementing these goals have to come mostly from Western donors, including the U.S., Japan and the 15-member European Union (EU).

According to the U.N. Development Program (UNDP), the reconstruction of war-devastated Iraq alone could cost over US$30 billion in the first three years. But these are funds that may well be diverted from poverty eradication and anti-AIDS program, says Iyer.

"If the world's richest nations were genuine in their stated desire to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, they need to mobilize the same political will that is now manifest in fighting wars," adds Henry Northover of the London-based Catholic Fund for Overseas Development.

Northover says that one quarter of the $26 billion promised by the U.S. for the use of airbases in Turkey could have cancelled the outstanding debt of the whole of sub-Saharan Africa.

"It is a scandal that the lives of millions of the world's poorest people must take second place to the resources that are being used to pursue the war against Iraq," he said.

This week, congressional committees approved a request from U.S. President George W. Bush for a hefty $75 billion to fund the first six months of the Iraqi war and related anti-terrorism and foreign aid expenses. Global annual military spending, which reached $780 billion in 1999 and $840 billion in 2001, is heading for a trillion dollars, according to U.N. estimates.

The London-based ActionAid says that official development assistance (ODA) from the world's richest to the poorest countries has continued to decline over the last decade. At last count, it was $53 billion in 2000, down from $56 billion in 1999.

Herfkens is confident that the EU countries will live up to their commitments to reach the target of spending 0.7 percent of their gross national product (GNP) on ODA before the next decade. In contrast, she said, the U.S. contribution is 0.15 of GNP, although Washington contributes most among the world's countries in dollar terms, about $10 billion annually. The collective EU aid budget is about $25 billion yearly.

Last year, Bush pledged an "additional" $5 billion in aid to developing nations, bringing the U.S. total to $15 billion. But Herfkens said it remains to be seen how much of that will really be "additional." According to published reports, the administration has sought congressional approval for about $1.3 billion in additional aid this year, but is likely to receive only about $300 million.

Iyer also expressed serious concern over the U.S. trend towards unilateralism. "The biggest worry is that the retreat from multilateralism, as evidenced by the marginalization of both the United Nations and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in the run-up to the war, will spill over into internationally negotiated rules governing trade and finance and take the political steam out of free trade," she added.

A landmark decision on multilateral trade was taken in mid-2001 at the global trade round in Doha, Qatar, when the 145 members of the World Trade Organization (WTO) decided to work towards slashing subsidies and trade barriers in agriculture, which is heavily protected by Western nations. But several targets for the reform of the multilateral trading system have been missed in recent months.

Iyer said that none of the promises made at the Doha meeting, including those related to issues of patents and agricultural subsidies, had been met, and that prospects for the future are not good. Agricultural subsidies favor five percent of the population of rich nations and impoverish about 90 percent of the people in the South, she added. The EU's $440 billion a year subsidy for cereals, dairy products and sugar has driven African farmers to poverty while America's $4 billion subsidy to 25,000 cotton farmers have lowered world prices by a quarter, said Iyer.

"So it was a sign of hypocrisy to talk about poverty eradication in the MDGs on the one hand, and perpetuate it on the other, through trade practices that distorted development."

She pointed out that subsidies per cow in the EU amount to about $2.50 per day while subsidies for a cow in Japan equal $7.50 per day. "At the same time, 75 percent of people in sub-Saharan African lived on less than a dollar a day," she added.

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