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Even the poorest deserve the basics

The Hanoi meeting is being co-sponsored by Norway and the Netherlands and will be hosted by Vietnam. It will bring together government representatives from more than 20 developing and all donor nations, including the Group of 7, and officials of UNICEF, United Nations Development Programme, United Nations Population Fund, World Health Organisation, World Bank and a dozen non-governmental organisations.

"The 20/20 Initiative is based on the premise that universal access to basic social services can be achieved by all countries, even those with relatively low levels of per capita income," UNICEF Executive Director Carol Bellamy said. "At its heart is a mutual commitment by developing and industrialised countries alike to allocate sufficient resources from their national budgets and Official Development Assistance (ODA) to get the job done."

"Millions of people are still deprived of their right to basic social services," Ms. Bellamy stated. "For instance, an estimated 40 per cent of all children in developing countries, many of them girls, fail to complete four years of primary education, the minimum required to ensure lasting literacy."

The UNICEF chief added that the initiative's target of 20 per cent is indicative, not prescriptive. "The share will vary from country to country but, at the global level, the allocation of about 20 per cent of national budgets and 20 per cent of ODA is required to close the gap between current spending and the minimum level necessary to reach universality during the first decades of the 21st Century."

National 20/20 budget studies in some 30 countries show that the share governments allocate to basic social services ranges, on average, between 12 and 14 per cent, which is insufficient to reach universal coverage over the next 10 to 15 years. Very few countries spend anywhere near 20 per cent of their budgets on these services. The donor share spent in developing countries on basic social services averages about 15 per cent, though this amount varies from country to country and from year to year.

In addition, public spending in recipient nations often by-passes the poor and suffers from inefficiencies that reduce the impact of spending on social services.

"Implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child means that the commitments to reach the unreached with basic social services must be expressed in concrete financial terms within national budgets and through international cooperation," Ms. Bellamy said.

"Debt reduction is also an essential factor in making the 20/20 initiative a realistic goal for the coming millennium," Ms. Bellamy added. " Many low-income countries now spend a larger proportion of their national budgets servicing external debt than on basic social services, a fact that is morally unacceptable and economically senseless. Providing universal access to adequate basic services will require the urgent removal of the debt burden in the least developed countries."

The 20/20 Initiative offers an incentive for debt relief. Ms. Bellamy noted that the fiscal dividend resulting from debt relief can be earmarked for basic social services that reach goals established by the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). These goals include halving poverty, reducing under-five and maternal mortality and achieving basic education and reproductive health for all by the year 2015.

"The Hanoi meeting should make it clear that providing universal and sustained access to basic social services is essential to the development objectives of both developing and donor countries," Ms. Bellamy said. "The bottom line for the world's poorest children is that, without renewed global commitment to the 20/20 Initiative, their chances of survival will be radically and, in all too many cases, entirely diminished."

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