Patrick Watt is senior policy officer at Action Aid. He writes:
The UN World Summit in New York, which concludes tomorrow, was billed as the mother of all summits. Both the number of heads of state and government (170 and counting) and the breadth of the agenda (UN reform, peace and security, human rights and international development) were unprecedented. The same cannot be claimed of the outcome, on which verdicts have ranged from "modest" to "a fiasco".
Kofi Annan came here hoping for a "San Francisco moment", echoing the founding UN conference in the west coast city. But in the wake of the oil for food scandal and John Bolton's 750 proposed amendments to the summit document, that hasn't happened. There have been some important steps forward. The summit agreed language on "responsibility to protect", which in principle should prevent another genocide from being ignored by the international community. A new peacebuilding commission has been established, to coordinate reconstruction efforts in post-conflict countries. But on the millennium development goals, the original focus of the summit, it is hard to point to progress.
Tony Blair, EU president Jose Manuel Barroso, President Obasanjo of Nigeria and Bob Geldof, speaking to the press here on Thursday morning, gave their own views on the summit's development agenda. They were keen to emphasise the pledges at the G8 summit on debt and aid, and the need for these pledges to be implemented. But there was no hiding the fact that this is a summit that has produced nothing new on development. Most of the commitments from Gleneagles have been restated, in opaque diplomatese, but there is little forward momentum. Most critically, on trade the summit has failed to set up expectations ahead of the World Trade Organisation meeting in Hong Kong this December. In effect, when it comes to development the international community has been treading water in New York. The poor, meanwhile, are being left to sink or swim.
