Soaring food price rises could impact on millennium development goals

Geneva: The World Health Assembly (WHA) in Geneva has been told that efforts to meet the objectives of the millennium development goals (MDGs) in tackling global poverty may be “undone” by soaring food prices.

The assembly also heard that the recent devastating earthquake in China and hurricane in Burma should serve as a “wake up” call for bolstering health strategies around the world.

The warning came from Leslie Ramsammy, newly-elected president of the WHA, the key decision-making body of the Geneva-based World Health Organisation (WHO).

Ramsammy, who is health minister for the South American country of Guyana, said, “Soaring food prices may create not just additional obstacles towards meeting the millennium development goals but could also undo some of the gains we have made in the global fight against hunger and malnutrition. This should be cause for serious concern.”

The eight MDGs – agreed by all the world’s countries and leading development institutions - range from halving extreme poverty and halting the spread of HIV/AIDS to providing universal primary education, all by the target date of 2015.

The assembly, which runs until the end of the week, heard that the world is at the midpoint in this process.

The indications are that some developing countries are lagging behind the trajectory needed to meet the MDGs and some advanced countries are behind meeting the development cooperation targets critical to the MDGs, it was said.

Last month, the European commission said that the "EU must stand by its promises and deliver on development aid if we are to meet the MDGs," and that "each member state should come forward with a multi-annual plan, indicating the exact increases planned per year."

Ramsammy, addressing the opening session of this year’s WHA, said that as 2008 was the MDG midpoint, this is a crucial year for generating the necessary momentum towards the MDGs.

“What both developing countries and advanced countries will do to accelerate progress toward meeting the MDGs by 2015 will depend importantly on budgetary and policy actions by parliaments in both sets of countries,” he said.

“I just hope that this year’s WHA will help provide a much-needed impetus towards meeting the MDG goals and also the tremendous challenges posed by such events as the recent natural disasters in China and Burma which should act as a wake up call to bolstering global health strategies.”

Progress on the MDGs will be assessed by officials from ministries of finance, development and foreign affairs at the G8 summit in Japan in July and at a conference in Doha in December.

This year’s assembly has been described as a “historic” occasion as the WHO, which has 193 member states, celebrates its 60th anniversary. A record number of delegates are attending the event.

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