U.N. Executive Coordinator for the Millennium Development Goals Campaign Urges Rich Countries to Find the Political Will to Support the MDGs
Attorney Eveline Herfkens, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Anan's Executive Coordinator for the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) Campaign, called upon Western nations to strenuously lobby and otherwise court politicans' support for the MDGs. Speaking before a group of invited guests at Pact on May 15, Herfkens pointed out that six billion of the world's citizens own the millennium development goals, which all 189 United Nations member states pledged to implement by 2015. As the U.N. MDG coordinator, Herfkens sees her task as one of mobilizing these people and hopes to do so by working with politicians and parliamentarians in developed countries, as well as with NGOs, think tanks, universities and other civil society organizations.
The Millennium Development goals aim to reduce extreme poverty by half in every part of the world by 2015. Seven of the eight goals are for poor countries and have completion dates already established. Goal eight, to develop a global partnership for development, has no date for completion. Herfkens continually stressed that bringing to fruition the elements of goal eight calls for political will by rich countries and she urged the audience to strenuously lobby for support of the MDGs.
"Herfkens's emphasis on the advocacy role American PVOs must play is important. There are needed policy changes in trade regulations and debt relief that can save hundred of millions of dollars, which is as important as our on-the-ground role in program service delivery and implementation," said Pact President and CEO Sarah Newhall.
Although the road ahead is littered with hurdles, Herfkens believes the promises contained in the MDGs can be fulfilled through multilateral action. She strongly rejected the notion held by many that there is fatigue with foreign aid among middle-class westerners who don't want to support non-Western elites in developing countries, noting that U.S. public opinion polls show that U.S. citizens consistently register support for development assistance.
Herfkens talked about the relationships between developed and developing countries, which are increasingly interlinked through finance, migration, debt relief, drugs, sex trafficking and poverty. She cited the importance of the Monterrey Conference and the GTZ Report on AIDS, which also stressed these linkages. "One of the tasks is for developed country citizens to get their governments to stop subsidizing rich countries at the expense of poor countries," Herfkens stated. She observed that in her own country of The Netherlands cows are subsidized at $2.00 per day, while millions of people in developing countries subsist on $1.00 or less a day.
Before becoming coordinator for the Millennium Development Goals Campaign, Herfkens was Dutch Minister for Development Cooperation from 1998-2002 and Executive Director of the World Bank Group in Washington, D. C. from 1990-1996. She served nine years in the Dutch Parliament as a member of the Labour Party and was a founding member of the Utstein Group, an association of four women progressive development cooperation ministers from the U.K., Germany, Norway and The Netherlands.
