NYT: U.N. Report Cites U.S. and Japan as the 'Least Generous Donors'

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/08/international/08nations.html

September 8, 2005

U.N. Report Cites U.S. and Japan as the 'Least Generous Donors'

By CELIA W. DUGGER

UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 7 - A week before world leaders gather here to set a course for combating global poverty, a United Nations report released on Wednesday names the United States and Japan as among "the least generous donors" and says American and European trade policies are hypocritical and contribute to impoverishing African farmers.

The report also highlights shortcomings in developing countries. It notes that India's and China's progress in reducing the easily preventable deaths of children has slowed even as their economic growth has surged. India has 2.5 million deaths of children a year, while China is second, with 730,000.

The new document, the annual Human Development Report, calls on India and China to tackle health inequalities aggressively. It also maintains that rich countries must significantly increase aid if the goals they agreed to five years ago - to halve extreme poverty and reduce deaths of children by two-thirds by 2015, among others - are to be met.

The report was unusual for the United Nations in so specifically describing the deficiencies of rich countries' policies. It was commissioned by the United Nations Development Program and written by a team of experts led by Kevin Watkins, former director of research for the charity Oxfam.

While crediting the United States with being the world's largest donor, the report points out that among the world's richest countries, America is second to last in aid as a portion of its national income, with Italy bringing up the rear. Japan was third from the bottom. Aid per capita from donors ranges from more than $200 in Sweden to $51 in the United States and $37 in Italy.

Richard Grenell, a spokesman for the United States at the United Nations, disputed the idea that the United States is stingy. "Let me remind the authors that President Bush has increased overall development assistance from the United States by 90 percent since he took office," he said.

The report notes that rich countries trumpet the virtues of open markets and free trade, even as they put up protectionist barriers against goods from poor countries and spend hundreds of billions on subsidies that benefit large-scale farmers, landowners and agribusiness.

"Industrial countries are locked into a system that wastes money at home and destroys livelihoods abroad," the report says.

It singles out the European Union for a policy "that lavishes $51 billion in support on producers." It also criticizes the United States for paying an estimated $4.7 billion to 20,000 cotton farmers in 2005, more than the total of American aid to Africa, a policy that the report contends gives American producers an unfair advantage over small farmers in Burkina Faso and Mali.

The report also criticizes China and India for their policies. In China, the erosion of public health care has worsened the situation of the rural poor, it says. In India, it adds, inadequate public health services mean most children are not fully immunized against diseases in the hugely populous northern states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.

"Were India to show the same level of dynamism and innovation in tackling basic health inequalities as it has displayed in global technology markets, it could rapidly get on track for achieving" the targets set in 2005, the report says.