PM Gordon Brown Speech on MDGs, 31 July 2007

[Guest guest]

Speech by Gordon Brown, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

at the United Nations, New York (Dag Hammarskjöld Auditorium

Library)

8.15am, 31 July 2007

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It is a pleasure to be here in New York today.

Coming here six years after September 11th

I recall the resilience and bravery shown in this city in the face of tragedy.

Indeed, America

has shown by the actions of all its people that while buildings can be

destroyed, values are indestructible; and while lives have been put at risk, the

cause of liberty never dies.

And let me begin by thanking the UN Secretary-General

warmly for the work he is undertaking to bring peace to the troubled region of Darfur.

For today is an important decision day for Darfur - and for change.

The situation in Darfur

is the greatest humanitarian disaster the world faces today.  Over 200,000

dead, 2 million displaced and 4 million on food aid. Following my meeting with

President Bush, and I thank him for his leadership on Darfur, the UK and the

French have now, with US support, agreed and tabled a UN Security Council

resolution that will mandate the deployment of the world’s largest

peacekeeping operation to protect the citizens of Darfur.  And I hope this plan

- for a 19,000 African Union-UN force - will be adopted later today. 

Immediately we will work hard to deploy this force quickly. And the plan for

Darfur from now on is to achieve a ceasefire, including an end to aerial

bombings of civilians; drive forward peace talks starting in Arusha Tanzania

this weekend on 3rd August; and as peace is established, offer to

and begin to invest in recovery and reconstruction. But we must be clear if any

party blocks progress and the killings continue, I and others will redouble our

efforts to impose further sanctions.

The message for Darfur

is that it is time for change. And I am here to say that its also time for

change so that we can meet the world’s Millennium Development Goals.

We do this best when we all join together

in common cause.  So I want to discuss with you how starting from the shared

needs, common interests and linked destinies of all countries across the world

- rich and poor - as well as private and voluntary sectors, we can come

together to forge a new global alliance for peace and prosperity.

When one month ago I took office as Prime

Minister, one of my first acts was to ask Ministers of the United Kingdom

Government - from International Development and Foreign Office to Business and

Trade, Treasury and the Environment - to report to me on what we must do to

meet the world’s Millennium Development Goals and to eradicate the great

evils of our time: illiteracy, disease, poverty, environmental degradation and

under-development.

Earlier this month, the UN Secretary-General launched the

UN’s 2007 progress report on the goals.  He said there was a clear need

for urgent and concerted action.

 

Now one month later I have come to New York – to the

city where the world convenes - to support the Secretary-General’s call

and to tell the truth: the goals the world has set are not being met and we

face an emergency - a development emergency - and we need emergency action if

we are to meet them.

And I have come today to New York because it was here seven years

ago…

in this United Nations conclave…

with the eyes of the whole world upon us all…

that every world leader, every international body, almost

every single country signed a historic declaration for the new millennium,

pledging to set and then to meet by 2015 eight development goals. 

It was a remarkable moment --- the whole

world coming together as one, the leadership of the poorest countries to be

empowered by the obligations accepted by the richest.  All of us accepting our

shared responsibilities to work together for change.

But seven years on it is already clear that

our pace is too slow; our direction too uncertain; our vision at risk.

The Millennium Development Goal of 2000, to be met in 2015,

is to reduce by two-thirds infant mortality. But unless we act, it will not be

met by 2015, not even by 2030, not until 2050.

The Millennium Development Goal of 2000, to be met in 2015,

is primary education for every child. Unless we act it will not be met by 2015,

not even by 2050 but at best by 2100.

And unless we act, the planet will by 2015 be suffering not

less but more environmental degradation, and millions of people will still be

struggling on less than one dollar a day, with millions of children still

hungry.

As the UN Secretary-General said earlier this month

pointedly and persuasively  ‘millions of lives quite literally hang in

the balance’.

The

calendar says we are half way from 2000 to 2015. But the reality is that we are

we are a million miles away from

success.

The world did not come together in New York

in 2000, come together again in Doha in 2001,

in Johannesburg and Monterrey in 2002, in Gleneagles and New York in 2005 and

Heiligendamm in 2007 to make, re-make

and reaffirm promises, for us then to break them.

We cannot allow our promises that became pledges

to descend into just aspirations, and then wishful thinking, and then only

words that symbolise broken promises.

 

We did not make the commitment to the Millennium

Development Goals only for us to be remembered as the generation that betrayed

promises rather than honoured them and undermined trust that promises can ever

be kept.

So it is

time to call it what it is: a development emergency which needs emergency

action.

If 30,000 children died needlessly and avoidably every day

in America or Britain

we would call it an emergency. And an emergency is what it is.

So when the need is pressing, when it is

our generation that has made historic commitments, when the time to meet them

is now short, the simple questions that - to paraphrase the words of an

American president - we must ask are:

         

If not now, when?

          If not us, who?

If not together, how?

And I believe the scale of the challenge is

such that we cannot now leave it to some other time and some other people but

must act now, working together.

Yet despite all the failures, success is not beyond our

vision or our grasp.  And for all the measures of despair I have mentioned,

there can also be reason for hope.

For we know that when we act, and act together, we can make

progress.

We have shown how we can address polio, measles and tuberculosis.

The numbers of children out of

school has fallen from 100 million to 77 million.

34 countries are now on track to meet the

infant mortality goal.

44 countries now on track to meet the

poverty goal.

47 countries now on track to meet the

education goal - because of aid and debt relief.

So let no one say aid and debt relief don't

make a difference and politics never works - what doesn't work is doing

nothing.

And

with 130 million children immunized in a life-giving movement to eliminate

polio and smallpox, we have also shown

we can act with boldness to vaccinate children. The International Finance

Facility for Immunisation - backed by the Gates Foundation, six European

governments, Brazil and South Africa – is frontloading 4 billion dollars

of funds and will enable, by 2015, 500 million children to be vaccinated and at

least 5 million lives saved.

And if this can be achieved by one world-wide financial

facility in one sphere of healthcare, how much more can be achieved by private

and public sectors, and faith groups and NGOs working together - not just in

health but across education, economic development and the environment?

And so my argument is simple: the greatest

of evils that touches the deepest places of conscience demands the greatest of

endeavour.

The greatest of challenges now demands the

boldest of initiatives.

To address the worst of poverty we urgently

need to summon up the best efforts of humanity.

 

I want to summon into existence the greatest coalition of

conscience in pursuit of the greatest of causes.

And I firmly believe that if we can

discover common purpose there is no failing in today’s world that cannot

be addressed by mobilising our strengths, no individual struggle that drags

people down that cannot benefit from a renewed public purpose that can lift

people up.

For you also know what I know: that the world has the

technology to cure, the science to heal, the medicine to save lives.

Past generations had the old excuse.

They could say:

If only we had the knowledge

If only we had the technology

If only we had the medicine

If only we had the science

If only we had the wealth.

Today we have the science, technology, medicine and wealth:

what we now need is the unity and strength of purpose to employ the ingenuity

and resources we have – and to employ them well - to help those who need

it.

And we need a compact –

the rich accepting their responsibilities to invest, to support, to end

protectionism and to deliver our promises; the developing countries accepting

their responsibilities to reform, to open up to trade, and to be transparent

and free of corruption.

But our objectives cannot be

achieved by governments alone, however well intentioned; or private sector

alone, however generous; or NGOs or faith groups alone, however well meaning or

determined – it can only be achieved in a genuine partnership together.

So it is time to call into action the eighth of the

Millennium Goals so we can meet the first seven.  Let us remember Millennium

Development Goal eight – to call into being, beyond governments alone, a

global partnership for development, and together harness the energy, the ideas

and the talents of the private sector, consumers, NGOs and faith groups, and

citizens everywhere.

The sum of all the individual actions working together to

achieve real change.

Some people call it the mobilisation of soft power…I

call it people power.

People power in support of the leadership of developing

countries.

So let me say to governments of developing

countries: you are the leaders in charge of the destiny of your countries. And

you have told us that that destiny is not to be poor.  The world has moved from

the age of colonialism to the age of political independence but economic

dependence, to what must become the new age of empowerment: and our task is to

support and empower you in the open, transparent decision-making and reforms

you need to make, and to keep our promises.

Let me say to business:  you know better than anyone that in

the long run you simply cannot succeed in places where the roads are

impassable, where people have no access to markets, where employees are

under-educated or under-fed, where the rule of law is poorly established or

poorly respected.  Not only does business have the technology, the skills, the

expertise for wealth and job creation that if fully mobilised for global

purpose will help meet our goals, it is also in your best business interest to

help poor countries develop. 

Let me say to faith groups and NGOs -- your

moral outrage at avoidable poverty has led you to work for the greatest of

causes, the highest of ideals, and become the leaders of the campaign to make

poverty history.  Imagine what more you can accomplish if the energy to oppose

and expose harnessed to the energy to   propose and inspire is given more

support by the rest of us—businesses, citizens, and governments.

Let me say to individuals….I know that many of you

want to help make a difference, want to be responsible consumers, want to make

your voices heard, want to be active citizens of the world.  You can play a

part as individuals in ensuring that when the history books look back on 2007

and 2008, they talk of a popular campaign for change so big, broad, deep and

wide that governments around the whole world had to sit up, listen and act.

Let me say to all our global institutions and international

financial institutions: We have been standing at the crossroads of change for

too long. It is time to implement the reforms needed, prove your

relevance for the global age, and make the difficult choices that will give us

an international system that is truly fit for the 21st century agenda ----

one that reflects new shared purpose for the age of globalisation, delivering

change to those who need it most.

And let me say to governments of developed countries: We must deliver on our previous promises --- on 0.7 per cent, on making

our aid more effective, on debt cancellation, on trade, on universal access to

AIDS treatment, on reducing carbon emissions. And let us not just fulfil the commitments we have already made

but work with everyone who has a contribution to make. Not just more reports or more studies - for we know

what needs to be done - but action.

A programme of action on education to end

illiteracy and to ensure opportunity for all.

A programme of action on trade and economic

development to end poverty and ensure prosperity for all.

A programme of action to challenge

degradation and to protect the environment, to promote safety and security for

all.

And a programme of action to eradicate disease to ensure

decent health for all.

So today 14 world leaders and 21 top businessmen and women

have come together to sign up to a new commitment to action to meet this

development emergency. 

I am delighted that the UN Secretary-General is here today

to witness and respond.

Together we are calling on all  – not just governments

but also private sector, civil society and faith groups - to come together in a

worldwide initiative to form new partnerships to help accelerate our progress. 

I want us to come together as one world – public,

private, voluntary sectors including faith groups and international

institutions – 

·

in

education – government, teachers, schools, universities,  business, NGOs

and faith groups;

·

in trade

and wealth creation - government, business, trade unions, cities, NGOs and

faith groups;

·

in the

environment - government, business, scientists, cities, NGOs and faith groups;

·

in

health - governments, doctors, scientists, businesses, NGOs and faith groups.

I want us to call an emergency meeting next year at which we

report on where we are and what we have to do.

In the coming year we must turn these renewed commitments

into immediate action.  We must agree in the autumn a global trade deal that

delivers for the poor not just the rich; we must in Bali, in December, agree

the outline for a bold climate plan and at the G8 in Japan in July 2008 we must

deliver on the promises we made on aid and debt.

And each year from 2008 in our countdown to

2015 we must mobilise action around detailed objectives: lives saved from

killer diseases like TB or polio, children in school, people with clean water,

people on anti-retrovirals, people in jobs, businesses created.  All the

individual actions can be measured and aggregated as steps towards our goals. 

I welcome the work already being done in the United Nations,

particularly the start this year of Annual Ministerial Reviews of the

Millennium Development Goals by the Economic and Social Council, and the

preparations for a major Financing for Development conference in Doha next December. 

And around them we must build a consensus to support the

urgent actions we must all take, with everyone playing their part.

Education

Let me set out what I believe our

partnership for 2015 can achieve for our first goal - to end illiteracy by

ensuring schooling for all.

Last year in Mozambique, under the inspiration

of Mandela’s leadership, the international community launched a

new ‘Education For All’ initiative: the demand that the promise of

free education must be kept, school by school, class by class, and child by

child.

And I ask all NGOs, churches and faith

groups to demand of every country that they support this great literacy

initiative that will help ensure that young children

are given hope.

In Indonesia I have seen barefoot children living above open

sewers; in India I have witnessed hundreds of children sleeping rough in the

streets; in Nigeria I met AIDS orphans who have AIDS and TB themselves; and in

Mozambique I heard from children being taught on the floor with leaking roofs

and four shifts a day.

Today in Africa

governments, local and national, provide the majority of school places but up

to one third of schooling is provided by churches and faith groups, and

hundreds of businesses and charity foundations are involved in supporting

schools.

So how can we move forward ?

Already 25 African and Asian countries have

agreed to submit ten year education plans.

The Netherlands,

Canada, Ireland, France,

Australia, Germany, Spain

and Japan

have made new commitments.

The US and G8 have pledged to help fill the immediate

funding gaps in the Fast Track Initiative. 

And to set a ten year goal the UK has pledged 15 billion dollars

– locking in the long-term financial commitment that is vital to

delivering high quality education for all.

We will call on others in education, business and the

voluntary sector to join us so that we can put in place long-term predictable

funding to finance long-term education plans.

We will encourage schools and colleges and universities in

rich countries to reach out to partner with schools and others in poor

countries.

In Britain

we will review ‘gift aid’ charity reliefs to maximize the

contribution of everyone – individuals, businesses and foundations.

And it is because we are committed to the rights of every

child that we will do for education what the Red Cross and Médecins Sans

Frontières do for health and seek to provide education not just in places of

comfort and peace but everywhere in the world – for the 40 million

children living behind frontiers in conflict zones and failed states.  And it is a measure of the engagement we need that this new

initiative can be led only by voluntary action.

And let me tell you why I believe schooling

for all can be achieved. Education is not only the most economically efficient

and socially beneficial investment we can make but also the cheapest and most

cost effective. For in the developing world it costs just 100 dollars per child

per year for schooling. Just 2 dollars a week. And so to finance all the

schools and teachers we need costs 9 billion dollars a year.

For every person in the richest part of the

world that is less than two pence a day, or four cents a day.

 

If every person in the rich world

contributes 10 pounds - or 20 dollars - a year today, we could meet our

education goal tomorrow.

Trade and

Economic Development

While education is the key to empowerment,

trade, wealth creation and job creation are the only routes to long term

prosperity.

And it is time to agree a new partnership

for prosperity:

in each country, the government undertaking

a rigorous examination of the obstacles to business formation…

in each country, development agencies

helping to create the infrastructure necessary for growth…

in each country, the power of

entrepreneurship unleashed…

in each country, a focus on agricultural

productivity…

in each country, government and businesses

being long term partners in a joint mission on economic development.

In the 1990s the talk was structural adjustment;

in 2007 it is sustainable development.  But perhaps for too long we have talked

the language of development without defining its starting point in wealth

creation - the dignity of individuals empowered to trade and be economically

self sufficient.

No country has moved to development without

opening up to trade.

So I accept an immediate obligation on world leaders

to address protectionism and work to make what we promised  - the development

trade round - happen this year.

It is urgent that heads of government stand ready to break

the deadlock, using all our resources of leadership. In recent days I have

talked to Chancellor Merkel, President Barroso, Prime Minister Socrates and

President Lula, President Mbeki and Prime Minister Singh, as well as Pascal

Lamy.  And I am determined that contacts between leaders are stepped up so that

we are ready to quickly finalise an agreement in the near future.

And we must not only open the door but enable people to walk

through it, so alongside our fight for a trade agreement must come a

multi-billion pound ‘aid for trade’ programme for poor nations

– for which the US, Japan and Europe have already contributed 9 billion

dollars - to build the infrastructure, the communications and education to take

advantage of trading opportunities and to prevent their most vulnerable people

from falling further into poverty as they become integrated into the global

economy. 

Climate

Change

I address you today as many of you go into

important discussions taking place at the General Assembly later this morning

and again in September on climate change.  And I strongly welcome the

leadership the Secretary-General has shown on this issue in the run-up to the Bali conference in December. 

We know that the gains from global prosperity

have been disproportionately enjoyed by the people in industrialised countries

and that the consequences of climate change will be disproportionately felt by

the poorest who are least responsible for it --- making

the issue of climate change one of justice as much as economic development. 

And we know that developing countries are

already living in their daily lives with what we live in fear of in ours:

·

in Southern Africa malaria has spread into new areas where

it was never previously a threat;

·

Lake Chad is no

longer a lake but a dust bowl;

·

farmers

in Kenya

are unable to identify the seasons in order to know when to sow their crops;

·

the

Pacific islanders of Tuvalu

– only 3 metres above sea level – are already negotiating the right

to move to New Zealand;

·

water

scarcity across Asia and Africa is forcing

women to walk miles further for water.

And because

we are already having to spend $6 billion of aid a year simply to respond to

humanitarian crises caused by environmental neglect, we are spending to deal

with the consequences of failure - resources diverted to tackle the short term

consequences of environmental change, when we need to invest now to create the

low carbon conditions for success in the future.

And I want to say to you today that there is no trade off

between meeting our goals on economic development and meeting our goals on the

environment and climate change – that tackling poverty is just not

possible without also tackling climate change. Indeed that economic progress

social justice and environmental care now go together. 

That is why Millennium

Development Goal seven – that we ensure environmental sustainability - is

central to what we do. 

Creating a sustainable planet not just for

some but for all means doing much more to help developing countries invest to

adapt to the immediate consequences of climate change.  For our part, Britain is

offering a new Environmental Transformation Fund worth 1.6 billion dollars

which will help meet our international commitment to poverty reduction through

investment in clean energy, sustainable forestry, adaptation and environmental

protection.

And building on the global Clean Energy

Investment Framework of the World Bank and multilateral development banks

– we should make the World Bank a bank for environment as well as

development and strengthen its role to stimulate investment in energy access,

energy efficiency, low carbon supply, and adaptation in developing countries -

not least through innovative new mechanisms joining public and private finance

in common cause.

 

At the same time, rich countries must

significantly cut our own greenhouse gas emissions with the European Union

committing itself to a 20 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions

– 30 per cent if part of a new global effort - as we move to an

ambitious, comprehensive and binding international agreement for the period

after 2012, putting the world on the path to halving global emissions and

including commitments to develop, deploy and transfer low carbon technologies,

to create a global carbon market and to help finance developing country

investment in clean energy.

 

And building on the historic commitments

made by the G8 earlier this year it is vital that all countries work to achieve

such an agreement by the end of 2009.

But working together - harnessing the

innovation of business to develop new technologies, the responsibility of

consumers and individuals to change their own behaviour, and the conscience of

NGOs - we can achieve even more.  In particular I want the private sector

involved in designing a global carbon market that genuinely benefits the poor.

Health

Public and private sectors can also now

work together more effectively to address the fourth evil: disease.  For the

greatest of human afflictions demands the greatest genius science can offer.

There is no greater causes than that every

child in the world should be able to benefit from the best medicine and

healthcare.

And today we have it in our power the

ability to create lives free form the burden of preventable disease, a gift of

life unimaginable even ten years ago, a gift that enriches us all.

Before us is the dream that we can triumph

over ancient scourges and for the first time in the history of the world we can

conquer polio, TB, tetanus, measles and then – with further advances and

initiatives – go on to eliminate pneumoccocal pneumonia, malaria and

eventually HIV/AIDS.

I want to encourage pathbreaking public

private partnerships not just in research but in development and delivery of

treatments and drugs.

At Gleneagles in 2005 the G8 agreed the

target of universal access to HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment and care by 2010. 

Over 50 countries led by the United

States have contributed to the Global Fund

for HIV, TB and malaria.  And France,

the United Kingdom, Brazil, Chile

and Norway,

joined now by some other donors, have launched UNITAID - an international drug

purchase facility designed to provide additional predictable funding to scale

up access to drugs and diagnostics – and lower their cost.

Yet too often we talk only of mobilising

money to cure individual diseases.  The biggest challenge is to devise organise

and manage health care as a whole  - not just for curing individual diseases or

for the distribution of single drugs but to build overall health care systems

that will serve generations.

So drugs and vaccines are only part of the

answer. Weak health systems and insufficient doctors and nurses are also among

the main obstacles to access to basic healthcare.

Take Malawi – with 12 million people

- and just 250 doctors -- one doctor for 50,000 people. And just 3800 nurses.

For 20 million people in Mozambique,

just 500 doctors and 4000 nurses.

For 38 million people in Tanzania. Just

800 doctors and 3600 nurses.

So we should set a new objective - to match

advances in drugs and treatments by advances in the capacity of healthcare

systems to deliver.

Later this year we will launch a new initiative to better

align finance from donors and from within countries themselves with

comprehensive national health plans and provide more long term predictable

financial support.

And in the next year I want the Global

Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation to have more power to use international

finance to build health care systems for the future.

Today, across the world, medical science,

human altruism backed by the innovation and ingenuity of financial services

have joined together as one in a humanitarian effort of unprecedented scale and

influence.

The private-public partnership which has

given birth to the international financial facility for immunisation is, in my

view, a model in one sphere in health for what we can achieve in public-private

co-operation across health, education and infrastructure.

 

The principle is that by investing money

now in addressing the causes of poverty and underdevelopment we save money that

we would have to spend later on addressing the symptoms. In this way the rates

of return from investment are greater than the cost of borrowing and make it

cost effective.

Moving immunisation from just a fortunate

minority to all the population dramatically cuts the risk of contagion and by

investing now in preventing disease saves the costs of treatment of that

disease later.

This approach however is relevant to other areas too: it can

be extended to building the capacity for the provision of health care itself -

indeed for the very creation of national health services.

And this model can be applied also to

education, money spent up front on schooling and skills paid back by the productive

gain from educated people. 

But to make this work we need a genuine

partnership between governments and markets, the best and most cost effective

way of meeting many of our Millennium Development Goals: Long term commitments

from donor countries sufficiently secure for markets to front load finance.

Public and private sectors working together.

A New Partnership

So my call today is not just to the public purpose of this

generation but to the idealism of this and the next generation - that great causes

can inspire new energy and transformative change.

 

Let us call on the world’s entrepreneurs to put their

talents to create businesses and jobs in the new economies - and to encourage a

new generation of entrepreneurs for the future.

Let us call on the world’s scientists to put creative

genius and innovative flair at the service of solving the technological

challenges that face poorer countries as well as richer countries - and to

train the scientists of the future.

Let us call on the world’s engineers from IT to water

and sanitation experts to apply their problem solving expertise to address the

infrastructure needs of the under-developed as well as the developed economies

– and then to train a new generation of engineers.

Let us summon up the energies of the world’s doctors,

nurses and healthcare workers to help us cure the diseases and plan the

healthcare systems of all and not just some countries - and then to train a new

generation of doctors and nurses and health carers.

Let us call upon the teachers of the world not just to teach

but to inspire the young – and then to train a new generation of

teachers.

 

In 1960 here in America President Kennedy

called for a peace corps – an international commitment to harness the

idealism many felt in the fact of threats to human progress and world peace. 

Today we should evoke the same spirit to forge a coalition for justice.

And when conscience is joined to

conscience, moral force to moral force… think how much our power to do

good can achieve.

Governments, business, scientists, engineers, doctors,

nurses, charities and faith groups coming together to make globalisation a

force for justice on a global scale.

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