Poorest nations, not just richest, must act to end extreme poverty – campaigners

LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – The world’s rich donor nations must increase their overseas aid budgets and reverse the trend of declining funding for the poorest countries in order to meet a global goal of ending poverty by 2030, an advocacy group said today.

Yet governments of the least-developed countries must also contribute by committing to a minimum level of spending to provide basic services, including health and education, for everyone within five years, the ONE Campaign said in a report.

As world leaders prepare to meet at a development finance summit in Addis Ababa in July, ahead of agreeing a new set of development goals later this year, ONE said 2015 could be a pivotal year for the world’s most vulnerable people.

The United Nations is expected to adopt 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in September, which will replace the eight existing Millennium Development Goals and address issues such as healthcare, education, water, energy and climate change.

“Despite multiple summits to debate these issues, there’s a shocking lack of global leadership to deliver genuine, life changing commitments for the world’s poorest and hardest to reach,” said Eloise Todd, ONE’s global policy director.

“New global goals which could set out the roadmap to end extreme poverty will be worth little if leaders fail to back them with an ambitious financing plan,” she said.

Official development aid (ODA) from the 28 member countries of the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) was stable in 2014, after hitting an all-time high in 2013, but aid to the poorest countries continued to fall, according to the DAC.