Canada Needs Timetable To Achieve 0.7% GNP, Help Poor Countries Fight Disease, Poverty, Opinion Piece Says

Canada "needs to do more if it is to carry its weight in the global fight for development, peace and security," Jeffrey Sachs, director of the U.N. Millennium Project and director of Columbia University's Earth Institute, and John MacArthur, manager of the U.N. Millennium Project and associate director of the Earth Institute, write in an opinion piece in Toronto's Globe and Mail. Wealthy nations, including Canada, need to "live up to their long-standing, and long-unfulfilled, commitment" to provide 0.7% of their gross national product as development aid by 2015 to allow resource-poor countries to fight disease, provide more food and escape poverty, Sachs and MacArthur say. Although the "momentum to reach the target is real and growing" in other countries, Canada has not set a timetable to achieve this commitment, according to the authors. Canada's 2005 shortfall of its pledged 0.7% could have funded an "entire" global initiative to control malaria in Africa, which kills more than two million children annually, Sachs and MacArthur say. Canada's "transparent lack of follow-through" in this initiative might have "high" political costs for the country, including a lack of international "influence," the authors say. To improve its "international leadership," Canada should provide "an immediate and decisive commitment to a timetable" for meeting its pledge, Sachs and MacArthur write, concluding, "It will also help to save millions and create a more just, prosperous and secure world" (Sachs/MacArthur, Globe and Mail, 4/22).