German minister calls for war on poverty
Declaring that “pre-emptive wars” are against international law, Germany’s development minister has demanded to know why the world can find billions of dollars for military battles and not millions to fight poverty – “the biggest enemy”.
“If there is a just war to be fought, it is the war on poverty and hunger, illness and disease, illiteracy and environmental degradation, exclusion and injustice,” economic cooperation and development minister Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul said yesterday.
The German minister spoke at the annual high-level meeting of UN, World Bank and International Monetary Fund officials that follows the spring meetings in Washington of the global financial institutions. This year the World Trade Organisation also participated.
Germany joined fellow UN Security Council members France, Russia and China in opposing the US-led war against Iraq, and she made clear that the German government considers the invasion illegal.
“The world needs to prevent war,” Ms Wieczorek-Zeul said. “It does not need so-called ‘pre-emptive wars’. They are against international laws.”
She said the time had come for the international community “to channel all our efforts now into a return to the prevention of war” first and foremost by demanding implementation of a General Assembly resolution calling for global poverty to be cut in half by 2015.
“How is it possible that billions of US dollars can easily be mobilised for war whereas for the fight against the biggest enemy, poverty, millions are not given?” she asked.
The General Assembly resolution – which is not legally binding – should be implemented “with the same international vigour” as Security Council Resolution 1441 which gave Iraq a final opportunity to disarm peacefully or face serious consequences, Ms Wieczorek-Zeul said.
Germany is concerned, she said, that the Iraq war will have its most serious impact on developing countries whose economic growth rates will suffer the largest declines.
The world is also “in danger of entering a new arms race”, she said.
At the spring meetings this weekend, the IMF and World Bank also focused on the goals adopted by world leaders at the Millennium Summit in September 2000, which were included in the General Assembly resolution. They not only call for global poverty to be cut in half by 2015 but for the Aids epidemic to be halted and all children to have a primary school education by that date.
A new World Bank report issued on Sunday said global poverty can be cut in half by 2015 if rich countries lower trade barriers and increase foreign aid. But it said even if worldwide economic growth stays on track, poverty will rise in the Middle East and remain severe in Africa, where the number of poor is likely to climb from 315 million in 1999 to 404 million in 2015.
The 146 nations in the World Trade Organisation are conducting a series of negotiations designed to reduce multi-billion-dollar barriers to international trade and boost the global economy. But the new trade round, launched in Doha, Qatar, in 2001 remains bogged down in key areas including agriculture and how to ensure that poor countries can afford patented medicines to treat diseases like HIV/Aids and tuberculosis.
Ms Wieczorek-Zeul said “extremely intense efforts are being made on all sides to find solutions” to make a follow-up conference in Cancun, Mexico, in September “a success”.
