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Gro Harlem Brundtland is Prime Minister of Norway, one of the few industrialized nations that has regularly surpassed the 0.7% of GNP target for official development assistance (ODA). Ms. Brundtland headed the World Commission on Environment and Development which published its report, `Our Common Future', in 1987.
The setting is my office in Oslo. The date is May 1st 1994. My visitor, UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, speaks about the financial crisis of the United Nations, and asks: "Madam Prime Minister, how have you been able to keep up the high level of Norway's development assistance for so many years?"
This is, in our case, a one billion dollar question. Aid fatigue is felt in Scandinavia also, but we have managed even in times of financial constraint to maintain a high level of official development assistance (ODA), largely because most political parties have supported aid as a goal.
Aid for development was introduced in Norway in 1959 at a time when Norwegians felt that they were in a position to share their prosperity with people in what we then called the underdeveloped countries. Several other industrialized countries were able to expand their aid programmes during periods of growth and full employment. Then came the 1980s and the economic recession. Unemployment rates soared. People felt insecure. Never had the rich felt so poor.
Redistributive system
Scandals and stories of corruption in some recipient countries added to the problem of maintaining political support for aid. In recent years, environment considerations have entered the debate, and it became obvious that support for projects that were environment-friendly would be more easily forthcoming than for those that were not. Aid that was purely for the poor and hungry evaporated gradually. The `CNN factor' might moderate this picture, but not for extensive periods of time.
I told the Secretary-General that friends from the third world had asked us to speak out more frankly about our aid programme - how 95% of it is not tied to Norwegian suppliers, how at least 4% goes to family planning programmes, and how it has been poverty oriented. I spoke also about how easy it is to criticize aid, and how difficult it is to come up with solutions that make it less needed.
We live in an inequitable world. But all our societies have some kind of social policy. Even the least developed and the most laissez-faire countries maintain some kind of redistributive system. And even if the opening up of free trade will provide enormous benefits, create businesses, and boost construction of infrastructure, there are sectors which depend more on responsibility and solidarity than on markets.
When speaking in the Guildhall of London in March 1994, the Prime Minister of India said that he knew of no great industrialist who would come and look after the primary health centres of India. That, he said correctly, was for the governments to do. Many countries not possessing the riches of India acknowledge this responsibility, but their means are even more limited.
A world where the vast majority of children are free from malnutrition, illiteracy and some of the most prevalent diseases could be achieved in a decade, if given priority. Nevertheless, we are approaching a new millennium without allocating the $30 billion a year which has been agreed as the cost for giving all children the chance to grow to their full physical and mental potential. This is an insignificant amount compared with the funds for military purposes.
The cost of poverty
From my own experience of working with the World Commission on Environment and Development, I would particularly emphasize how the cost of poverty, in human suffering, in the wasteful use of human resources, and in environmental degradation, has been grossly neglected. While only a minority of countries are welfare states in our Nordic sense of that word, the international redistributive system is in shameful condition.
It is not only the lack of generosity of donor countries that is to blame. The recipient countries are also responsible, because their governments have often failed to recognize that budgets for development aid in the North can only be carried by democratic support. The effective use of funds, and the social profile of the recipient nations, are relevant to the donors.
Basic programmes
A lot has been achieved in reaching the goals which were agreed on at the 1990 World Summit for Children. According to UNICEF's The State of the World's Children 1995, 2.5 million fewer children will die in 1996 than in 1990, because of increased efforts in primary health care. Guinea worm disease may soon be eradicated, and many regions are free from polio. Countries like Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan are now able to feed their populations. Even though it is difficult to estimate how many of these major achievements can be attributed to aid, they suggest that international cooperation can work.
More particularly, from infancy through adolescence, girls are in special need when it comes to nutrition, reproductive health and education. They will be the mothers and educators of tomorrow's children. As we agreed at the 1994 Cairo International Conference on Population and Development, the education of girls is the best of all strategies towards reproductive health and thereby reduction of birth rates, child mortality and the spreading of diseases such as AIDS.
The average level of ODA given by the donor countries in 1993 was 0.3% of GNP. Only about a quarter of this goes to the 50 least developed countries: less than one sixth goes to agriculture; even less is spent for the main areas of the social sector, i.e. education, primary health care and reproductive health. Of the allocation to education, only a small portion is spent on primary education. A larger share is allotted to the secondary and university levels serving the few.
Norway introduced the so-called `20/20' formula as one of the main objectives for the World Summit for Social Development in Copenhagen this spring. The underpinnings for the proposal have been developed jointly by UNDP, UNESCO, UNFPA, UNICEF and WHO. They have suggested an allocation of an average of 20% of the recipient governments' national budgets and 20% of the donor countries' aid budgets, to basic social services. I am convinced that an increased allocation to priority basic social programmes would substantially contribute to the objective of reaching the poorest.
A great many reports have been presented which have enhanced our understanding of pressing problems. We will continue to need a reminder that the common interest is more often than not also in our own best national interest - to live in a better organized, more just and equitable world. Enormous efforts have gone into United Nations work on development. We have adopted work programmes and plans of action - even priority programmes - but they have been acted on with a conspicuous lack of dynamism.
In an interdependent world, we must show solidarity across borders and generations. We need an equitable sharing of global bills for peace, environment and development. In this perspective Norway will continue to remind the world of the United Nations target of 0.7% of GNP for development aid purposes. This is a minimal taxation of the fortunate few for the benefit of the powerless poor.