Beginnings Issue 12.pub - Planning Institute of Jamaica

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P a g e 8 I s s u e 12 Develop a global partnership for development. A Review of The Worlds Progress on MDG 8. By Adlai Davids & Nadine Brown goal at a global level as well as in the local context of Jamaica External Debt Service Payment MDG 8 is the one goal explicitly linked to the global financial system and in the most recent (2008) UN Millennium Development Goals Report, some trends in the achievement of its six targets were mostly not encouraging. External debt service payments by developing and heavily indebted countries’ have been The current global financial and economic crises are threatening the realization of the MDGs. In an October statement, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, stressed the need for global leadership on the MDGs, so that wealthier member states do not forget the 2015 targets as they address the failures of their own economic and financial systems. In the MDG 2008 Gap Task Force, the UN chief stated that while there has been a number of UN inter-agency processes tracking goals one to seven, it has been somewhat challenging to assess whether the targets stated under Goal 8 — Develop a Global Partnership for Development, are being fulfilled. Goal 8 has six broad targets related to: • ODA; • Market access; • Access to affordable essential drugs; • Special needs of land-locked countries and Small Island developing States (SIDS); and • Debt sustainability; and • Access to new technologies especially ICT. Five of the targets are discussed in this article provides a succinct review of the progress towards achieving the constantly dropping since 1993 (See Figure 1), and a favourable environment for investment has not yet been established. Financial resources for foreign direct investment are diminishing because of the gobal financial crisis, expected investment in these countries are unlikely to increase. As such, gains in dealing comprehensively with developing countries’ debt can therefore be systematically lost. Figure 1. External Debt Service Payments as a Proportion of Export revenues, 1990-2006 (Percentage) Source: MDG Report 2008 Official Development Assistance (ODA) Total development aid is still below the UN target of 0.7 per cent for gross national income (GNI) of members of the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) of the OECD (See Figure 2). For all (Continued on page 9)
P a g e 9 I s s u e 12 MDG 8... (Continued from page 8) developed countries, development assistance fell to 0.28 per cent per cent of their combined GNI for 2007. Figure 2: Net Official Development Assistance from OECD- DAC countries as a proportion of donor’s gross national income, 1990-2007 (percentage) as the barriers to exports from developing countries are mostly still in place. In some areas, like the 2005 WTO Agreement on Textiles and Clothing, benefits to some developing countries accrued, but at the expense of other developing countries. Several unilateral agreements that benefited some developing countries were extended to regional bilateral trade agreements, but none has been extended to benefit developing countries as a whole. In fact, levels of duty-free access to developed markets are still at 2004 levels. Figure 4: Proportion of developed country imports from developing countries, excluding arms and oil, admitted free of duty and developed countries’ average tariffs on imports of key products from developing countries, 2000- 2006 (Percentage) Source: MDG Report 2008 ODA continued to play a critical role as a source of external financing for the Government of Jamaica (GOJ, particularly to fund development projects and policy reforms. However, as is the case for other developing countries, Jamaica’s receipt of ODA has been on a declining trend (See Figure 3) 1 . Figure 3. Loans and Grant Approved, 1997-2007 US$ Million 600 500 400 300 200 100 0 Source: Economic and Social Survey of Jamaica (ESSJ) 2007 Market Access 1997 1999 2001 2003 2005 2007 Loans Grants Access to markets in developed countries is also little improved, Source:: MDG Report 2008 Access to Affordable Essential Drugs Although the assessment of the progress of this target is hampered by the lack of quantitative indicators, it is safe to say that the MDG target to provide access to affordable essential drugs in developing countries has served to mobilize resources and improve coordination aimed at increasing access to essential medicine and treatments to fight diseases (MDG Gap Report, 2008). The provision of affordable essential drugs in developing countries is also poor, according to the UN MDG report. In a survey of 30 countries, public and private sector availability of the essential drugs list were at 35 per cent and 63 per cent, respectively. In the Jamaican context, the government announced in 2005
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