Asia-Pacific countries vow to achieve millennium goals

Ministers and senior officials from over 40 Asian and Pacific countries pledged to take more concrete measures to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015, including ending poverty.

Mr. Kim Hak-Su, Executive Secretary, UNESCAP accompanied by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono of Indonesia during the opening of the meeting.

“We recognize the urgent needs for Asia and the Pacific to undertake collective actions, considering that five years have passed since the MDGs were launched and much remains to be done for the next ten years”, the ministers said.

The pledge was included in the “Jakarta Declaration on Millennium Development Goals in Asia and the Pacific: the Way Forward 2015” issued at the end of the three-day Regional Ministerial Meeting on MDGs in Asia and the Pacific held from 3 to 5 August at Jakarta.

The Meeting was convened as part of the preparation to the High-Level Plenary Meeting of the 60th session of the United Nations General Assembly to be held in September (see below). A total of 400 officials, including 17 ministers attended the Meeting, agreeing on a common strategy in building partnership to achieve the MDGs in the region.

“We recognize that Asia and the Pacific region contains two thirds of the over 1 billion world’s poor and therefore, strong political will as well as bold and decisive action are needed for achieving sustainable development and eradicating poverty. We commit to make poverty reduction the overarching objective of developmental partnership and cooperation in the Asia and the Pacific”, the ministers said.

The ministers emphasized “the adverse impact of development of pandemics, such as HIV/AIDS, and other communicable diseases, particularly the significant economic and social costs and thus slow down the rate reduction of poverty”. “Of paramount importance are improving health services as well as developing regional initiatives to address the prevailing and rapid growth of HIV/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis, avian flu, SARS and other communicable diseases”, they said.

“We recognize that poverty, hunger and malnutrition are the main causes of child and maternal mortality and call for enhanced regional partnership and cooperation to support national effort in addressing these problems on a priority basis”.

The Declaration also recognizes “the important relation between international migration and development and the need to deal with the issue, including at the regional level, in a coordinated and coherent manner with a view to addressing the opportunities and challenges and harness its positive effects on development”.