Millennium Development Goals:
Promoting the Possible
Rajeswary Iruthayanathan, Managing Editor,
CHOICES
United Nations, New York-Your neighbours may
not yet know about the Millennium Development Goals (http://www.undp.org/mdg/), but
there's a good chance they will. Soon. The Goals could change the world.
The Millennium Development Goals are intended
to address some of the world's most pressing problems-114 million children of primary age
are not enrolled in school; over 1.2 billion people live on less than one dollar a day,
800 million are hungry and 448 million children under five are underweight in the world.
And 800 million children under 15 years contracted the AIDS virus in 2002.
Three years ago world leaders pledged to
halve extreme poverty, promote gender equality, reduce maternal mortality, roll back
HIV/AIDS and stop environmental degradation. The Goals have become the yardstick for
progress among many governments and international organizations to measure progress, shift
budget priorities and institute reforms to improve human development around the world.
But the Goals are still not well known among
the public at large. While they may never become a household name, the United Nations is
mobilizing its resources and partners in an unprecedented manner in support of the Goals.
"The MDGs are a very simple but powerful
idea whose time has come," said UNDP Administrator Mark Malloch Brown. "They are
in effect the UN's effort to set the terms of a globalization driven not by the interests
of the strong, but managed in the interests of the poor."
To broaden recognition of the Goals, UNDP
initiated a series of communications activities, the latest being the launch of the Human
Development Report, entitled Millennium Development Goals: A compact among nations to end
human poverty. The Report argues that the Goals are attainable, provided countries of the
North and South work together.
And in October, UNDP, as part of its annual
commemoration of the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, is activating its
global network of offices, as well as UN agencies, civil society organizations, the
private sector, artists, sports figures, the media and citizens, to channel their energies
to propel the Goals into the public consciousness.
Between 17-24 October this year, every UNDP
country office will recognize local heroes who, through their own efforts, have energized
others to raise awareness about the Goals in their communities, municipalities, districts
and cities.
At a special ceremony at the UN headquarters,
UNDP will honour five individuals representing every region of the world, who have made a
difference in raising awareness about the Goals. These honourees will receive the Poverty
Eradication Award. On this occasion, UNDP will also launch Africa 2015, an Africa-wide
movement to boost the efforts of those already working to achieve the Goals and to
encourage others to join them.
The idea behind Africa 2015, which will be
replicated in other regions, is to find a specific Goal that can captivate public
interest. In Africa, where three-quarters of the world's 42 million suffering from
HIV/AIDS live, the campaign will focus on combating HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases.
UNDP recently appointed Baaba Maal, the
renowned Senegalese singer, as UNDP Youth Emissary to remind young people in Africa about
the threat of HIV/AIDS. Starting with a concert in July in Dakar, Baaba Maal is backing
UNDP's efforts to make sure the Goals become better known.
"Redressing the effects of HIV/ AIDS
will lead towards reaching the Millennium Development Goals," said Kenneth Kaunda,
Zambia's first President, at a UNDP-sponsored workshop in South Africa recently. Mr
Kaunda, who lost a son to AIDS, and who volunteered to take an HIV/AIDS test, added,
"We cannot talk about the Goals without factoring in the significance of
HIV/AIDS."
THE GOALS
By 2015, all United Nations Member States have pledged to:
. Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
. Achieve universal primary education
. Promote gender equality and empower women
. Reduce child mortality
. Improve maternal health
. Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases
. Ensure environmental sustainability
. Develop a global partnership for development
The Euro speaks many languages
Wim Duisenberg , Germany
What is money? Economists know that money is
defined by the functions that it fulfils: as a medium of exchange, as a unit of account
and as a store-of-value asset. Just as importantly, however, money is also defined by the
community for which it performs these functions. Because it is an economic instrument for
all its users, it also represents a political and cultural bond between them. Consider the
following simple fact: every day we are willing to exchange goods, services and our work
for something that actually has no value. We only do this because we believe that we can,
in turn, exchange this money for more goods or services from other people. This fact says
a lot about the amount of confidence we place in money itself. And it says much more about
the amount of confidence we have in each other. Essentially, therefore, money represents a
social contract.
The euro connects
There is probably no other currency that
represents mutual confidence, which is the foundation of a community, better than the
euro. It is the first currency that has given up not only its bond with gold, but also its
bond with the nation state. It is backed up neither by the stability of a metal’s
value nor by the might of the state. What Sir Thomas More said about gold 500 years ago
applies to the euro: it is made for people and receives its value through them. Every
currency is also a symbol of the community which it is supposed to serve. It is a symbol
of a society as a whole, but also a connecting link between its members. Anyone who has
travelled within the euro area recently must have felt – perhaps almost physically
– the uniting strength of the currency.
It is not enough to say that the euro is the
symbol of a large European community. In fact the introduction of the euro actually also
goes back to economic interests, which it serves. Completely in harmony with the
functionalistic approach to European integration pursued by Schuman and Monnet, the more
comprehensive European vision was advanced primarily by economic integration. Ever since
its establishment in 1957, the objective of the European Community had been to make the
free movement of goods, services, capital and people possible. After the ratification of
the Uniform European Document in 1986, this objective was reached in 1993 with the
creation of the single market.
The four markets for goods, services, capital
and labour are precisely the markets that are served by money. Their borders define the
area within which money performs public functions as a medium of exchange, a unit of
account, and a store-of-value asset. From this perspective it seems only natural to
conclude that, if money is a public good on the level of the single market, then its area
of validity should correspond to this level. In the context of the single market the
introduction of a common currency was the means of ensuring that the citizens benefit in
full from all the functions that money performs. Monetary union has not taken
people’s money away – it has it given it back to them.
The fact that the euro’s justification
lies in economic interests does not diminish its importance as a social contract. However,
the euro’s success as a social contract is only possible because it is rooted in a
second contract: a constitutional contract between the citizens, who own it, and the
institution they have given the task of protecting it. The administration of the currency
involves exercising a political function, of course, and the realization that this
requires a constitutional basis is not new. As early as 1360 the French bishop and
philosopher Nicolas Oresme was one of the first to successfully argue that money was not
the property of the state, but belonged to the community and each of its members.
One can only be grateful to the architects of the Maastricht Treaty for recognizing that
our money must fulfil its functions on the EU level. They were simultaneously aware that a
common currency can only perform its monetary tasks and do justice to its integrating role
if its value is maintained. That is why they made sure that a solid currency constitution
was drawn up in order to protect these functions and the stability of the currency. The
chapter of the Maastricht Treaty that deals with money is essentially a contract that
links the people of Europe to their bank of issue. Like every contract it contains five
elements.
The euro stabilizes
First, it defines its purpose, i.e. to
provide the economy and society with a medium with which the three functions of money are
reliably and sustainably fulfilled. In short, the purpose of the contract is to maintain
the integrity of the currency. Second, the contract mentions the institution that is
entrusted with this task: the European Central Bank, of course, together with the central
banks of the eurozone countries, which are together called the Eurosystem. Third, the
contract lays down the main objective of the central bank, for example, ensuring price
stability, which is also the way its success can be measured. The central bank is
accountable for this objective before all others. Consensus on this fundamental point is
based on many decades of academic research and empirical experience. It is generally
agreed that a central bank that does not succeed in ensuring price stability can hardly
exert any positive influence on economic growth and prosperity. In this respect the euro
has contributed not only to solidarity within the community it serves, but also to its
stability.
The contract also defines the tools the
central bank must use to do its job – especially emphasizing its independence –
and the restrictions to which it is subject in the fulfilment of its obligations. Yet no
contract would be complete if it did not lay down the responsibilities of the contracting
parties and the procedures for monitoring the implementation of the contract. The contract
also deals with these concerns. My colleagues on the ECB’s Board of Directors and I
report regularly on our policies to the European Parliament – and through it to the
public at large. In this way, and through our periodic progress reports, people can judge
for themselves whether we are fulfilling the obligations of the contract and protecting
the integrity of their money.
The legitimacy and credibility of the
constitutional contract on which the euro is based also stem from the contract’s
stability. No contract could inspire confidence if its regulations were constantly being
changed. Having mentioned Nicolas Oresme as an early advocate of the constitutional nature
of money, I will also quote his words on this topic: "Moneta debet esse quasi quaedam
lex et quaedam ordinatio firma." Money must be like a law and a fixed order. This
applies both to the constitutional and to the economic value of money. Which is why it was
an intelligent idea on the part of the authors of the contract to give Europe a currency
constitution that is not only extremely stable, but the most stable of the world in the
sense that it is perhaps the most difficult to change.
For more than ten years the common currency
has been the focus of hopes and fears, agreement and criticism directed not only at the
money, but also at the entire process of European integration. The introduction of the
euro was an event with far-reaching consequences for Europe; it was made possible by the
two treaties I have mentioned. The first, the money itself, is the contract that
unites/interconnects the people of the euro area – and all those who use the euro
– wherever they may be. Although the euro has formally existed for over four years,
it is understandable that the reality of the present contract is only being fully noticed
since the people have had euro cash in their pockets. In their way, the euro banknotes are
a physical manifestation of the social contract which the common money represents. The
euro is therefore the symbol of the European Union when defined as a community of people.
The second contract is the constitutional contract which connects the bank of issue –
the European Central Bank – with the people of Europe. The euro banknotes are also a
physical manifestation of this contract; as is shown by the fact that every single
banknote bears my signature.
(Courtesy: Deutschland Magazine, Embassy
of Germany, Kathmandu, Nepal) |
