UN officials challenge Johannesburg forum to invest more resources to fight global ills

Sounding the drumbeat for a stronger public commitment to fight global problems, United Nations officials today challenged governments meeting at the World Summit on Sustainable Development to invest more resources to help reduce worldwide hunger and poverty, provide clean water and ensure adequate treatment for HIV/AIDS.

"Governments, international organizations and financing institutions need to use their resources effectively to improve their performance and to step up their cooperation, working as one to overcome hunger and to consolidate the primary role of sustainable agriculture and rural development in food security," Jacques Diouf, the Director-General of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), said in an address to the Summit in Johannesburg, South Africa.

For her part, Carol Bellamy, the Executive Director of the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), said that achieve truly sustainable development meant creating world that was fit for boys and girls. "Something as simple as providing safe water and clean toilets in schools will not just help protect children from deadly diseases - it will keep millions of them, especially girls, going to school," she stressed. "And, making sure children get a quality basic education can help a single generation make a huge leap."

Meanwhile, Dr. Peter Piot, the Executive Director of the Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), said that the international community needed to make a major commitment to redress the human resource crisis provoked by the disease. He called for a broad spectrum of actions, from increased prevention and accessible treatment to investing in new models of development that re-build human capacity from the community up. "Turn our backs on the epidemic and, in the worst affected countries, development will continue its rapid slide into 'undevelopment,'" he warned. "But act purposefully and in partnership, and the impact of AIDS can be turned back."

In other news from the Summit, negotiations on some issues, such as outstanding targets and timetables, were being sent to a group of ministers for resolution. Although dozens of additional paragraphs in the draft action plan have been finalized, there were still several tough issues - such as trade subsidies, globalization, and a target for providing proper sanitation - that have not been resolved, UN officials said.

Negotiations were also continuing on setting a target for promoting renewable energy as a part of the goals dealing with energy, an issue that cuts across various regions and negotiating groups. There was still disagreement on a timetable for phasing out subsidies for fossil fuels, and whether the Summit should encourage the launch of action programmes for energy on a centralized basis, or whether efforts should be more decentralized.