Civil Society Organisations based in Asia and the Pacific region have said democracy and human rights are prerequisite for achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) set by the United Nations.
Dr. Arjun Karki
Dr. Arjun Karki (File Photo)
Addressing the MDG Asia Pacific ministerial meeting in Jakarta early this week on behalf of Asia Pacific Civil Society Organisations, Dr. Arjun Karki said it was paradoxical that even after five years of Millennium Declaration, more and more resources were being spent on military and arms in the name of state security than addressing the root causes of poverty, injustice and marginalisation. We are seriously concerned about the continuing political crises in the region for example in Afghanistan, Burma and most recently in Nepal. We urge the restoration of democratic government and rule of law in countries where it is lacking with urgent stress on Nepal, said Karki who is also the president of NGO Federation of Nepal.
The Millennium Declaration provides space for addressing freedom from want, fear and freedom to live in dignity within a holistic human rights framework. However, the continuing realities of our countries are that majority of children are still without food, millions are out of school, girls and women still face discrimination, 20 children die every minute of preventable poverty and diseases, two women die every hour during pregnancies or deliveries, 100 million girls and women are missing (due to reasons like female infanticides) in this region, and increasing AIDS and other epidemics, said Karki.
Noting that unequal power and elite politics create the social-economic basis of poverty and injustice, we believe that such issues cannot be dealt with properly without addressing the structural causes, revisiting current development paradigm and demonstrating commitments for fundamental rights. We would like to remind that there are more people killed by poverty, hunger and diseases than conflicts, war and natural disasters, he said.
We are also concerned about the myopic and misconceived notions of security dominating the negotiations and functioning of states and eroding our developmental gains. The focus should be on human and ecological security, he added.
The Civil Society organisations in the region demanded that more resources should go to development, addressing poverty, providing accessible and affordable social services than to military spending. The also demanded immediate and unconditional cancellation of what they called illegitimate debt of the developing and least developed countries through a transparent process and implementation of commitments of developed countries for 0.7% UN target for Official Development Assistance (ODA) and fulfil the higher commitment for Least Developed Countries (LDCs). They demanded that agriculture be taken out of the WTO negotiations to protect the increased vulnerability of the farmers against dumping and agricultural export subsidies, among others.
We believe that the Goals highlighted in the millennium declaration are achievable and we must urgently address these and not wait for 2015, Dr. Karki said.
One of the key targets set by UN MDGs include reducing by half the number of people living on less than one US dollar a day around the world by 2015.