DEVELOPMENT: U.N. Warns of Faltering Goals on Aid, Trade

By Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS, Sep 4 (IPS) - When the United Nations approved a set of development goals on poverty, health, gender empowerment, and sustainable environment back in September 2000, it laid down a deadline of 2015 to reach these targets.

Of the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) endorsed by the General Assembly, seven had a clear-cut deadline of 2015 as the target date.

But the eighth goal -- a North-South partnership for development, mostly underlying the obligations of Western industrial nations -- did not carry a rigid deadline.

"The deadlines were meant for the poor, not for the rich," says one cynical Third World development expert, who has been tracking the status of MDGs since their inception.

The eighth goal (MDG8) calls for a substantial increase in development aid; reduction or cancellation of developing countries' debts; removal of protectionist barriers for agricultural products; and access for developing nations to western markets.

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