[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 126 (Monday, September 20, 2010)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7199-S7200]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS

  Mr. LUGAR. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the attached 
editorial by Bono for the September 19, 2010, New York Times be printed 
in the Record. The editorial notes the language that I championed with 
Senator Cardin on requiring U.S.-listed extractive companies to reveal 
their payments which was incorporated in the Dodd-Frank Wall Street 
Reform and Consumer Protection Act.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record as follows:

               [From the New York Times, Sept. 19, 2010]

               M.D.G.'s for Beginners . . . and Finishers

                               (By Bono)

       I've noticed that New Yorkers, and I sometimes try to pass 
     for one these days, tend to greet the word ``summit'' with an 
     irritated roll of the eyes, a grunt, an impatient glance at 
     the wristwatch. In Manhattan, a summit has nothing to do with 
     crampons and ice picks, but refers instead to a large 
     gathering of important persons, head-of-state types and their 
     rock-star retinues in the vicinity of the United Nations 
     building and creates, therefore, a near total immobilization 
     of the East Side. Can world peace possibly be worth this? 
     Never, never . . . Eleanor Roosevelt, look what you've done . 
     . . .
       Recent global summit meetings, from Copenhagen to Toronto, 
     have frankly been a bust, so the world, which may not know it 
     yet, is overdue for a good multilateral confab--one that's 
     not just about the gabbing but about the doing. The subject 
     of the summit meeting at the United Nations this week is one 
     whose monumental importance is matched only by its minuscule 
     brand recognition: the Millennium Development Goals, 
     henceforth known as the M.D.G.'s (God save us from such dull 
     shorthand).
       The M.D.G.'s are possibly the most visionary deal that most 
     people have never heard of. In the run-up to the 21st 
     century, a grand global bargain was negotiated at a series of 
     summit meetings and then signed in 2000. The United Nations' 
     ``Millennium Declaration'' pledged to ``ensure that 
     globalization becomes a positive force for all the world's 
     people,'' especially the most marginalized in developing 
     countries. It wasn't a promise of rich nations to poor ones; 
     it was a pact, a partnership, in which each side would meet 
     obligations to its own citizens and to one another.
       Of course, this is the sort of airy-fairy stuff that people 
     at summit meetings tend to say and get away with because no 
     one else can bear to pay attention. The 2000 gathering was 
     different, though, because signatories agreed to specific 
     goals on a specific timeline: cutting hunger and poverty in 
     half, giving all girls and boys a basic education, reducing 
     infant and maternal mortality by two-thirds and three-
     quarters respectively, and reversing the spread of AIDS, 
     tuberculosis and malaria. All by 2015. Give it an A for 
     Ambition.
       So where are we now, 10 years on, with some ``first-world'' 
     economies looking as if they could go bang, and some second- 
     and third-level economies looking as if they could be 
     propping us up?
       Well, I'd direct you to the plenary sessions and panel 
     discussions for a detailed answer . . . but if you're, eh, 
     busy this week . . . my view, based on the data and what I've 
     seen on the ground, is that in many places it's going better 
     than you'd think.
       Much better, in fact. Tens of millions more kids are in 
     school thanks to debt cancellation. Millions of lives have 
     been saved through the battle against preventable disease, 
     thanks especially to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, 
     Tuberculosis and Malaria. Apart from fallout from the market 
     meltdown, economic growth in Africa has been gathering pace--
     over 5 percent per year in the decade ending in 2009. Poverty 
     declined by 1 percent a year from 1999 to 2005.
       The gains made by countries like Ghana show the progress 
     the Millennium Goals have helped create.
       At the same time, the struggles of places like Congo remind 
     us of the distance left to travel. There are serious 
     headwinds: 64 million people have been thrown back into 
     poverty as a result of the financial crises, and 150 million 
     are hungry because of the food crisis. And extending the 
     metaphor, there are storms on the horizon: the poor will be 
     hit first--and worst--by climate change.
       So there should be no Champagne toasts at this year's 
     summit meeting. The 10th birthday of our millennium is, or 
     ought to be, a purposeful affair, a redoubling of efforts. 
     After all, there's only five years before 2015, only five 
     years to make all that Second Avenue gridlock worth it. With 
     that in mind I'd like to offer three near-term tests of our 
     commitment to the M.D.G.'s.
       1. Find what works and then expand on it. Will mechanisms 
     like the Global Fund get the resources to do the job?
       Energetic, efficient and effective, the fund saves a 
     staggering 4,000 lives a day. Even a Wall Streeter would have 
     to admit, that's some return on investment. But few are aware 
     of it, a fact that allows key countries--from the United 
     States to Britain, France and Germany--to go unnoticed if 
     they ease off the throttle. The unsung successes of the fund 
     should be, well, sung, and after this summit meeting, its 
     work needs to be fully financed. This would help end the 
     absurdity of death by mosquito, and the preventable calamity 
     of 1,000 babies being born every day with H.I.V., passed to 
     them by their mothers who had no access to the effective, 
     inexpensive medicines that exist.
       2. Governance as an effect multiplier. In this column last 
     spring, I described some Africans I've met who see corruption 
     as more deadly than the deadliest of diseases, a cancer that 
     eats at the foundation of good governance even as the 
     foundation is being built. I don't just mean ``their'' 
     corruption; I mean ours, too. For example, multinational oil 
     companies. They want oil, and governments of poor countries 
     rich in just one thing, black gold, want to sell it to them. 
     All well and good. Except the way it too often happens, as 
     democracy campaigners in these countries point out, is not at 
     all good. Some of these companies knowingly participate in a 
     system of backhanders and bribery that ends up cheating the 
     host nation and turning what should be a resource blessing 
     into a kind of curse of black market cabals.
       Well, I'm pleased to give you an update on an intervention 
     that some of us thought of and fought for as critical: hidden 
     somewhere in the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill (admit it . 
     . . you haven't read it all either) there is a hugely 
     significant ``transparency'' amendment, added by Senators 
     Richard Lugar and Benjamin Cardin. Now energy companies 
     traded on American exchanges will have to reveal every 
     payment they make to government officials. If money changes 
     hands, it will happen in the open. This is the kind of 
     daylight that makes the cockroaches scurry.
       The British government should institute the same 
     requirement for companies trading in Britain, as should the 
     rest of the European Union and ultimately all the G-20 
     nations. According to the African entrepreneur Mo Ibrahim, 
     who has emerged as one of the most important voices on that 
     continent, transparency could do more to transform Africa 
     than even debt cancellation has. Measures like this one 
     should be central to any renewed Millennium Development Goal 
     strategy.
       And the cost to us is zero, nada. It's a clear thought in a 
     traffic jam.
       3. Demand clarity; measure inputs and outputs.
       Speaking of transparency, let's have a little more, please, 
     when it comes to the question of who is doing what toward 
     which goal and to what effect. We have to know where we are 
     to know how far we've left to go.
       Right now it's near impossible to keep track. Walk (if you 
     dare) into M.D.G. World and you will encounter a dizzying 
     array of vague financing and policy commitments on critical 
     issues, from maternal mortality to agricultural development. 
     You come across a load of bureau-babble that too often is 
     used to hide double counting, or mask double standards. This 
     is the stuff that feeds the cynics.
       What we need is an independent unit--made up of people from 
     governments, the private sector and civil society--to track 
     pledges and progress, not just on aid but also on trade, 
     governance, investment. It's essential for the credibility of 
     the United Nations, the M.D.G.'s, and all who work toward 
     them.
       And that was the deal, wasn't it? The promise we made at 
     the start of this century was not to perpetuate the old 
     relationships between donors and recipients, but to create 
     new ones, with true partners accountable to each other and 
     above all to the citizens these

[[Page S7200]]

     systems are supposed to work for. Strikes me as the right 
     sort of arrangement for an age of austerity as well as 
     interdependence. (The age of interrupted affluence should 
     sharpen our focus on future markets for our sake as well as 
     theirs.)
       No leader scheduled to speak at the summit meeting is more 
     painfully aware of this context than President Obama, who one 
     year ago pledged to put forth a global plan to reach the 
     development goals. If promoting transparency and investing in 
     what works is at the core of that strategy, he can assure 
     Americans that their dollars are reinforcing their values, 
     and their leadership in the world is undiminished. Action is 
     required to make these words, these dull statistics, sing. 
     The tune may not be pop but it won't leave your head--this 
     practical, achievable idea that the world, now out of kilter, 
     can re-balance itself and offer all, not just some, a chance 
     to exit the unfathomable deprivation that brings about the 
     need for such global bargains.
       I understand the critics who groan or snooze through the 
     pious pronouncements we will hear from the podium in the 
     General Assembly. But still in my heart and mind, 
     undiminished and undaunted, is this thought planted by Nelson 
     Mandela in his quest to tackle extreme poverty: ``Sometimes 
     it falls upon a generation to be great.''
       We have a lot to prove, but if the M.D.G. agreement had not 
     been made in 2000, much less would have happened than has 
     happened. Already, we've seen transformative results for 
     millions of people whose lives are shaped by the priorities 
     of people they will never know or meet--the very people 
     causing gridlock this week. For this at least, the world 
     should thank New Yorkers for the loan of their city.

                          ____________________