Annan welcomes France’s airline ticket levy to help developing countries

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan today welcomed the French Parliament’s adoption of a levy on airline tickets to help developing countries and urged others to follow this example.

The initiative, set to begin next July on locally issued tickets, will help improve the health sector of poor nations.

A spokesman for Mr. Annan called the scheme “a significant step, raising additional sources of innovative financing in support of the efforts by developing countries to reach the Millennium Development Goals.”

Known collectively as the MDGs, these time-bound targets were set at a 2000 UN Summit and aim to tackle major global ills such as poverty, illiteracy and hunger.

“The Secretary-General strongly urges other countries to follow France’s lead with similar measures,” his spokesman said in a statement released in New York.

Mr. Annan has long advocated innovative solutions to provide financing to developing countries. Asked last year about a proposed tax to help developing countries, he noted that the idea has been around for some time and acknowledged that it faced opposition.

“There are governments who see this as taxing their citizens, and they believe only they can tax their citizens,” he said. “But, the idea of finding a creative way of raising money for development and to assist the poor and to fight poverty, fight diseases and epidemics, is a real challenge and I think we need to explore all creative ways of raising funding for development.”