World Economic Forum Global Governance Initiative Report finds Modest Improvement in World Efforts to Meet UN Millennium Development Goals

17 January 2006 - Geneva, Switzerland

While global efforts to reach the United Nations Millennium Development Goals improved on some fronts in 2005, the world is still investing less than half the effort needed, according to a report released by the Global Governance Initiative (GGI) of the World Economic Forum. Renowned experts meeting at a Brookings Institution briefing in Washington D.C. today will discuss the GGI's assessment of global progress towards key international development, security, and environmental goals, and will chart a course for world leaders to make greater progress.

For the first time since the GGI’s inception, the report declared the world had improved its efforts in 2005 in the areas of peace and security, poverty, hunger, health, and education. This suggests that the focus given to poverty, Africa and development issues by a raft of events - the G-8 Summit; high profile campaigns such as Make Poverty History and the Live8 concerts; and new policies in major developing countries - had a genuine impact. Environment and human rights, however, slipped backwards in 2005.

The report scores the efforts of the world’s governments, non-governmental organizations and corporations against the UN Millennium Development Goals set in 2000. While this year’s score is the best result yet, 5 out of a goal of 10 was the highest score achieved for global efforts to reduce poverty, ensure peace and security, protect the environment and secure human rights in 2005.

Richard Samans, Managing Director of the World Economic Forum’s Centre for Public-Private Partnerships noted, “Overall, the news is positive, but only marginally. On most of the goals, the world’s efforts for 2005 earned slightly higher scores than in previous years – although still no score higher than a five, representing a level of effort about half of what was needed. And because the scores have for several years fallen far below the level of 10, which would have us on track to meet the goals, the gap between action and aspiration is growing ever larger. More will need to be done in the future to make up for what was not done in the past.”

Mark Moody Stuart, Chairman of Anglo American Plc and member of the Global Governance Initiative Steering Committee, commented, “2005 has seen private business grapple with notions of social responsibility. This report contains numerous examples of impressive action by local governments, civil society groups and businesses – sometimes in partnership. It is not yet the norm to think about these partnerships as the model for problem solving as they generally operate on too small a scale to bring about significant transformation in the world. However the achievements of these projects prove that the private sector has an important role to play in the efforts to establish meaningful stability and prosperity throughout the world.”

Summary of the Global Governance Initiative’s Assessment:

Laudable progress from 2004 was made in four areas, and an actual decline in progress is declared in the areas of human rights and the environment:

Going Up

PEACE & SECURITY: The international community did marginally better (10 percent) in addressing peace and security over the past year. No new wars began either within or between countries, thanks to the increased effectiveness of international preventive diplomacy, peacemaking, peacekeeping and peace building operations. But the world’s leaders missed a golden opportunity for a major step forward at September’s World Summit.

POVERTY & HUNGER: Poverty has climbed to the top of the global agenda, and overall, poor people around the world were marginally better off in 2005. It was a notable year for mass mobilization of global civil society campaigns demanding increased aid, debt cancellation and trade justice. A few leaders, notably Britain’s Tony Blair, stepped up to answer the call, elevating the poverty and hunger scores each by 10 percent.

EDUCATION: New promises on development aid and new policies by some poor countries improved the education score a notch from last year. Public advocacy campaigns for primary education reflected the growing global discourse on basic education as a fundamental right, not just an instrument for promoting economic development. But the world missed the deadline to achieve gender parity in education.

HEALTH: One point (10 percent) improvement from 2004; global public health is now firmly on the global agenda. Laudable efforts gave renewed attention to global public health issues, particularly child mortality, and there was a modest increase in resources for child immunizations, malaria and HIV/AIDS. But basic health infrastructure remains woefully lacking.

Going Down

ENVIRONMENT: The global environmental situation is bad and getting worse, and the score has dropped 10 percent or one point. There was a serious lack of high-level political commitment to global environmental goals, few countries slowed or reduced greenhouse gas emissions, no serious frameworks are in place to ensure the integrity of ecosystems, and hundreds of millions of people still lack access to clean water and sanitation.

HUMAN RIGHTS: The year represented a continued retreat on human rights, a trend evident since 2001, and the score for human rights fell to two, a 10 percent decline. Denial of human rights became a more entrenched part of national political rhetoric, with restrictions on freedom from torture and freedom of expression.

“The GGI shines a consistent spotlight on the international community’s commitment to live up to its rhetoric,” said Ann Florini, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and director of the GGI. “Though this year’s results show that scrutiny has brought some accountability and action, much more needs to be done for the coming years to be considered a success rather than another wasted opportunity.”

The full report may be found at: www.weforum.org/globalgovernance