Despite considerable progress in development over the last four decades, around one in five of the world’s population – two-thirds of them women and children – continue to live on less than $1 a day. In other words, in extreme poverty. One billion people do not have access to safe drinking water, 2.4 billion people lack proper sanitation. The poorest 20 percent of people in the world are ten times more likely to die before the age of fourteen than the richest 20 percent. And around 130 million children do not attend school.
This is the challenge that the world community faces, and Labour’s priorities since coming into government have been to reduce absolute poverty and work towards achievement of the International Development Targets (which were agreed by the international community in the 1990s). The targets include halving the proportion of the world’s population living in extreme poverty, achieving universal primary education and reducing infant and child mortality by two-thirds – all by 2015.
First of all, we have made a radical shift in the priorities of British development policy. For years under the Tories, aid was cut as a proportion of national wealth. Labour has reversed this. Between our 1997 election victory and 2003/04, the aid budget will have been increased by 45 percent in real terms. It will total £3.6 billion in the final year – the largest UK aid budget ever. We have also completely untied British aid, so that countries can purchase goods and services from the most cost-effective source.
Second, we are spending these increased resources in new ways. Rather than just supporting individual aid projects, we are now increasingly working with reforming governments in helping them to develop their own economies and provide improved public services for their people. This includes assisting these governments to design and deliver their own poverty reduction plans. As a result, the UK’s development strategy now covers a much wider range of issues, such as trade, investment and debt, the prevention of corruption and conflict, the promotion of human rights and effective government, and helping developing countries to safeguard their environment.
Third, we have increased our support for education and health in developing countries. We have allocated an extra £500 million to education since 1997, with particular emphasis on improving girls’ access to education. We have committed over £1 billion to support basic healthcare systems aimed at the health needs of the poor. And we have also supported the creation of the new Global Health Fund to make existing drugs and commodities more accessible to the poor, focusing on HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria.
Fourth, we have worked to strengthen the development effort of the key international institutions, such as the European Union, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the UN. And Britain has pushed for a fairer international trading system to give poor countries better trade access and a stronger voice within the World Trade Organisation.
Finally, we have led the international community on debt relief. It is wrong that poor countries should be forced to divert precious resources from key priorities such as health and education to the repayment of high and unsustainable levels of foreign debt. It was the British government that argued for a fundamental review of the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries initiative to provide faster, wider and deeper debt relief, and for debt relief to be linked to action to reduce poverty.
British government pressure and the tremendous campaign led by Jubilee 2000 and others have together secured real progress. To date, 23 heavily indebted poor countries have qualified for debt relief totalling more than $53 billion. This will reduce their debts by more than two-thirds on average, and will free up substantial resources for governments to spend on health, education and other public services.
Labour has written off all remaining aid debts owed to the UK. And we are committed to writing off the remaining export credit debts for countries that come through the HIPC process to produce 100 percent debt relief.
This is a significant reduction in the burden of debt and proof that political leadership and commitment can make a real difference. The challenge now is to retain and strengthen the alliance that came together around this issue and to use the same energy to make progress on all the International Development Targets.
The work Labour has been doing on development and the reduction of poverty has helped to win new respect for the UK across the world and in particular for Clare Short’s vision and leadership. But the challenge remains and we must continue to champion the cause of the world’s poor.