Goals to reduce poverty and infant mortality will be missed
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《英国医生杂志》
Published on the eve of the United Nations summit in New York this week, the UN's 2005 Human Development Report finds that progress on human development, public health, and education is slowing or stagnating in many parts of the world.
The report predicts that the UN's millennium development goals—a commitment made by 189 nations to reduce infant mortality and extreme poverty and to improve maternal health, primary education, and sex equality—are in many cases further from realisation today than they were in 1990.
"Almost all of the goals will be missed by most countries, some of them by epic margins," the UN concludes, if the world continues on a "business-asusual basis" between now and 2015, the date set for the goals' achievement.
Inequality is growing faster than ever, the report finds, within states as well as between them. "Most developing regions are falling behind, not catching up with, rich countries," the authors say. "The human development benefits of economic success have been slow to trickle down to large sections of the population—and the trickle appears to be slowing in some key areas of public health."
India and China are singled out as two countries with booming economies that have failed to produce commensurate improvements in social development. Progress on child mortality in these countries has slowed even as the economy has gathered steam, the UN says. Yet their vastly poorer neighbours, Vietnam and Bangladesh, have made great strides over the same period, proving the value of government intervention.
As in previous years the annual report predicts that if current trends continue the world's failure to meet the goal on infant mortality will result in an extra 41 million children dying between now and 2015.
On current trends, the report predicts, the world will not meet the goal of reducing child mortality by two thirds until 2045—30 years late. As for the goal of achieving universal primary education, 46 countries are currently going backwards or will not meet the target until after 2040, it says. The authors estimate that the income of the world's 500 richest people listed by Forbes magazine is equal to that of the world's poorest 416 million people.
Last month John Bolton, the United States' ambassador to the United Nations, called into question the very existence of the millennium development goals, when he presented a long list of objections to a draft document that is due to be presented at this week's UN summit.
Mr Bolton denied that the US had ever signed up to the goals, although President Bush has endorsed both the 2000 millennium declaration, which included the goals, and the Monterrey consensus, an agreement that urged wealthy countries to "make concrete efforts towards the target of 0.7% of gross national product" in foreign assistance.
Mr Bolton eventually accepted the reference to the goals in the summit document, but as the BMJ went to press he was still rejecting the annex setting the 0.7% aid target, and prospects for agreement looked far from certain.(Owen Dyer)
The report predicts that the UN's millennium development goals—a commitment made by 189 nations to reduce infant mortality and extreme poverty and to improve maternal health, primary education, and sex equality—are in many cases further from realisation today than they were in 1990.
"Almost all of the goals will be missed by most countries, some of them by epic margins," the UN concludes, if the world continues on a "business-asusual basis" between now and 2015, the date set for the goals' achievement.
Inequality is growing faster than ever, the report finds, within states as well as between them. "Most developing regions are falling behind, not catching up with, rich countries," the authors say. "The human development benefits of economic success have been slow to trickle down to large sections of the population—and the trickle appears to be slowing in some key areas of public health."
India and China are singled out as two countries with booming economies that have failed to produce commensurate improvements in social development. Progress on child mortality in these countries has slowed even as the economy has gathered steam, the UN says. Yet their vastly poorer neighbours, Vietnam and Bangladesh, have made great strides over the same period, proving the value of government intervention.
As in previous years the annual report predicts that if current trends continue the world's failure to meet the goal on infant mortality will result in an extra 41 million children dying between now and 2015.
On current trends, the report predicts, the world will not meet the goal of reducing child mortality by two thirds until 2045—30 years late. As for the goal of achieving universal primary education, 46 countries are currently going backwards or will not meet the target until after 2040, it says. The authors estimate that the income of the world's 500 richest people listed by Forbes magazine is equal to that of the world's poorest 416 million people.
Last month John Bolton, the United States' ambassador to the United Nations, called into question the very existence of the millennium development goals, when he presented a long list of objections to a draft document that is due to be presented at this week's UN summit.
Mr Bolton denied that the US had ever signed up to the goals, although President Bush has endorsed both the 2000 millennium declaration, which included the goals, and the Monterrey consensus, an agreement that urged wealthy countries to "make concrete efforts towards the target of 0.7% of gross national product" in foreign assistance.
Mr Bolton eventually accepted the reference to the goals in the summit document, but as the BMJ went to press he was still rejecting the annex setting the 0.7% aid target, and prospects for agreement looked far from certain.(Owen Dyer)