Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-04-04-Speech-3-132"
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"en.20010404.6.3-132"2
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"Mr President, as others have already suggested, the facts speak for themselves. Most of the 640 million people who live in the Least Developed Countries, just over one-tenth of the world's entire population, are struggling to survive on less than two dollars a day. Their average life expectancy is 50 years. Half of them are illiterate and two-thirds of the world's children, most of them little girls, are not in any kind of primary education. LDCs have seen a severe drop in capital flows, down 45% since 1990; and official development assistance continues to go down, having fallen by 30% since 1990.
As the President-in-Office has said, the HIPC initiative is yielding very slow results and coming in too late. Too many LDCs have totally unsustainable debt burdens. Many LDCs, such as Zambia for example, where I was recently, are still spending twice as much on debt servicing as they are on health and education.
This UN Conference therefore has to be about a new deal for LDCs; one that promotes pro-poor economic growth, poverty reduction and sustainable development. There will be, as Mr Lamy knows, a thematic session on trade, which I know he will expect to be used by the LDCs as a platform in preparation for the Qatar ministerial meeting. I am sure they will give ample evidence of the fall in commodity prices – which have fallen by 30% from 1998 to 1999 – and we will need to acknowledge that globalisation and liberalisation have had very mixed results. Everything but arms represents significant progress. I wonder whether Commissioner Lamy would be able to predict that other countries such as the US or Japan might be prepared to follow his excellent lead. I think I see him smile, and this might present us with some difficulties.
At this point it would be interesting to hear from Commissioner Lamy which LDC countries in particular are likely to export arms, as the title of this initiative is a bit perplexing.
Finally, this Conference is about analysing what we can do that is deliverable for the least developed countries when millions of people are unable to treat pneumonia, diarrhoea, TB or AIDS; when you have no medicines to give to your sick child or your dying wife; when your child is at school under a tree trying to learn to write its name with a twig."@en1
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"Kinnock, (PSE )."1
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