Goal 8: develop a global partnership for development
Goal 8 is probably the most complex but also most important of the eight goals. There are too many structural constraints for the poor countries to achieve the goals without any external help. This goal embodies all the efforts that rich countries will have to make for the Millennium development goals to become possible.
To achieve this, and thereby give a chance to the other goals to become reality, rich countries will have to undertake changes in the following sectors:
- Trading and financial system (importation taxes, subsidies policies)
- Address the special needs of the least developed countries and the ones of the landlocked and small island developing States
- Deal comprehensively with the debt problems of the developing countries
- In cooperation with developing countries, develop decent and productive work for Youth
- In cooperation with pharmaceutical companies, provide access to affordable drugs in developing countries
- In cooperation with the private sector, make available the benefits of new technologies
Also, it is absolutely vital that rich countries increase their direct financial help for development. If we want the MDG's to be reached by2015, rich countries will have to increase their help to an average of0.5% of their national income
Facts
The amount of money spent by the 30 OECD countries in their own agricultural subsidies programmes is higher than the GDP of the entire Sub-Saharan Africa (45 countries).
From 1990 to 2001, the donor countries have diminished their aid to the poor countries. The percentage of their GNI that goes to development aid lowered from 0.33% to 0.22%. This is far from the 0.7%towards which rich countries promised to work during the Conferences of Monterrey and Johannesburg.
