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BMJ 2002;324:1411 ( 15 June )

News

Lack of progress at summit spells disaster for poor countries

Zosia Kmietowicz, London

Crucial talks to protect the future of the planet and to combat world poverty ended in what environmentalists called "a giant fudge," with government ministers bowing to pressure from big business and failing to agree an action plan.

The United Nations meeting, held in Bali, Indonesia, was a preparation for the Earth Summit to be held in Johannesburg in Augustthe follow up to the last Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro 10 years ago. Its aim was to draft a blueprint for the Johannesburg summit, which is designed to review what progress has been made since the Rio meeting and to focus on problems facing the developing world, such as poverty, water supply, sanitation, and health.

But the UK campaigning group Friends of the Earth has claimed that world ministers have abandoned "the planet on the road to ruin" by failing to agree a plan of action.

Although the ministers claimed there has been substantial agreement on many issues designed to boost efforts to fight poverty and protect the environment, many of them agreed that many issues remained to be overcome.

Margot Wallstrom, the European Union's environment commissioner, said: "We have achieved a whole lot in Bali. I would have liked to see more progress, but, indeed, we did make progress."

But Friends of the Earth said the wording of proposals let big businesses off the hook by suggesting that "voluntary agreements" rather than binding ones were sufficient to make them responsible for the impact they had on society and the environment. Other groups, including Oxfam International and Greenpeace, said the lack of agreement spelt disaster for poor countries and the environment.

At a separate meeting world leaders met in Rome this week to step up the fight against global hunger. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization said an extra $24bn (£16.4bn; 25.4bn) a year was needed in investment if the target to halve the number of starving people in the world by the year 2015 was to be met.

In 1996 the World Food Summit set the target to halve the number of starving people from 840 million to 400 million by 2015. But the number is falling by just six million a yearfar short of the 22 million a year needed for the target to be reached.

(Credit: AP PHOTOS/BRENNAN LINSLEY)   Top: A child starves to death in Sudan. Bottom: James Morris of the World Food Programme at the UN global hunger summit this monthAp photos/pier Paulo Cito

© BMJ 2002
 

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Collections under which this article appears: Environmental Issues Other Public Health Socioeconomic Determinants of Health

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