NOV.

20, 2012

NR # 2929C

Inaugural Address of Hon. Feliciano Belmonte

South-East, East and North East Asia and Pacific Parliamentarian Forum on MDGs Acceleration and Post- 2015 Development Agenda November 20, 2012 Dr. Porapan Punyatabandarhu (Secretary General, Asian Forum of Parliamentarians on Population and Development (AFPPD), Mr. Minar Pimple (Regional Director, UN Millennium Campaign), Ms. Luiza Carvalho (UN Resident Coordinator, Philippines) Ms. Becky Malay (Co-convenor, Civil Society Advisory Committee Philippines), Members of Parliament, Distinguished guests, Ladies and Gentlemen, It is a privilege to welcome you all to the South-East, East and North East Asia and Pacific Parliamentarian Forum on MDGs Acceleration and Post-2015 Development Agenda. I thank the UN Millennium Campaign and its partners for this opportunity to address this sub-regional Parliamentarian Forum. Todays Forum breaks new ground in bringing together Members of Parliament and civil society leaders of the Asia-Pacific to re-affirm our political commitment to the Millennium Declarationthat most vital document from which the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were born. The Declaration drew a consensus on ending poverty as the central purpose of international development. It emphasized shared values of solidarity, equality, dignity, and respect for nature values which hold true to this day as we move forward to accelerate our efforts in meeting our 2015 targets and address challenges beyond that date. The MDGs have been described as among the most important and novel ideas that changed the world. The MDGs have heightened awareness and understanding of poverty and its multi-dimensional nature. They have served as focal points for governments, multilateral development institutions and agencies, and key sectors of society to work together and pool their resources and expertise. Based upon United Nations monitoring reports, the developing world will achieve many of the MDG targets, and progress already has happened in many countries, including those in sub-Saharan Africa.

Truly, in many respects, the Asia-Pacific region has been leading the way in MDG achievements. Thanks to its robust economic growth, the region as a whole has already surpassed the goal to reduce by half the proportion of people living in extreme poverty. Between 1990 and 2009, our region reduced the proportion of people living on less than $1.25 per day from 50 percent to 20 percent or from 1.57 billion people to 871 million people. But more efforts are needed to sustain these gains and reach those still untouched by this progress. Across the Asia-Pacific there are wide disparities in MDG attainment. Even in countries where there has been progress towards the MDGs, inequalities have persisted. Rising inequality undermines progress of the MDGs and betrays the promise of social justice in the Millennium Declaration. Why does inequality matter? Inequality imposes costs at the macro-economic levelit slows down the pace of economic growth needed to reduce poverty. It imposes costs at the societal levelbecause of its impacts to social tensions and conflict. The costs of inequality mean that the regions poorest population are bypassed by average rates of progress on the MDGs. Even worse, these groups are harder to reach than the rest of the poor population, giving their poverty an enduring quality. According to the Asian Development Bank, emerging Asias rapid growth could have reduced poverty by an additional 240 million people had not income distribution worsened in the past 20 years. Inequality matters not just for those at the bottom. Highly unequal countries grow more slowly, are more prone to conflict, and have weaker civil societies. These are realities that affect all income groups and all sectors. The worsening inequality is not acceptable and must be addressed. Otherwise, it will reverse gains and slow down advances towards achieving the MDG goals. We therefore need to focus even more sharply on the needs of the poor and vulnerable. Progress on the MDGs is also severely threatened under the weight of natural disasters, financial crisis, food and fuel insecurity, and climate change. The risk of injury and death from floods, landslides and high winds is higher among children, women and the elderly, especially for the poor. Children suffer more from weather shocks because of lasting effects of malnourishment and missing school limit their economic prospects. Moreover, extreme weather events can coincide with already wide environmental and economic stresses, limiting peoples choices in a wide range of context and making it harder to earn a living. And the burden is not borne equally. The food price increases between 2005 and 2008 caused additional millions of people to

go hungry. The financial and economic crisesthrough economic slowdown and unemploymentyielded an alarming economic and human development impact. Of similar concern is climate change which will be felt most severely in countries that are currently struggling to meet the MDGs. Climate change is already creating additional demands on fragile economies and draining limited resources that could otherwise be invested in MDG-related sectors. Many countries are constrained from accelerating MDGs, as gains thus far registered erode with the impact of climate change. If we fail to prevent the worst outcomes of these global challenges, there is certainly much greater risk of political unrest, violence, and possible breakdown of democratic governance. By any measure, the path to 2015 is difficult, but our greater success remains within reach. Though significant challenges persist, there are practical ways to accelerate progress that can be adapted to the national context and supported by broad international partnerships. Towards this end, I laud the work done by the UNDP to develop the MDG Acceleration Framework (MAF), which is being applied today in more than forty countries. The MAF is a useful tool to remove barriers to MDG progress. MAF provides a systematic way of bringing high-impact solutions together into a concrete plan of action, with roles defined for all development partners in the country. With only three years remaining, the challenge is to ensure the agenda for MDG acceleration will move forward. Evidence of what has worked on the ground points to important lessons to accelerate MDGs progress:
One, focusing of efforts and resources of government institutions and other players

on concrete measures designed to address off-track MDGs;

Two, determination of priorities within existing strategies and plans by making use

of existing studies, statistics, evaluations and lessons learned;

Three, adoption of a cross-sectoral, results-based approach that exploits synergies

and leads to new types of collaboration; and,

Four, addressing disparities by targeting population groups or geographical areas

that may be lagging behind. But even as we work to accelerate MDG progress, there is a need to begin thinking about the post-2015 development agenda. We need to realize how we in the region can strengthen our momentum amid emerging and new development challenges.

So as we begin the post-2015 discussion, it is imperative to revisit some core values and objectives of the Millennium Declaration that did not receive sufficient emphasis. These are addressing inequality, and environmental sustainability. A new development agenda beyond 2015 must start with a thorough and broad-based review of the MDG agenda. This review should be in the context of the global development challenges. The review results will provide us with the roadmap to ensure that the MDG framework will remain relevant beyond 2015. Also, the experiences of uneven progress among countries and the widening income gaps within countries suggest that the core values, especially equality of opportunities and outcome, underlined in the Millennium Declaration, should be central in the discussion of the post-2015 development agenda. Emerging global development challenges such as climate change also stress the need to find synergies in the approaches to environmental sustainability and equitable human development. At this turning point in the MDG campaign, let me categorically state that there is a need to scale up the engagement of parliaments in the MDGs. This Forum provides Members of Parliaments with the opportunity to play a key role in the push towards 2015, and to have a strong and organized voice in future MDG Review Summits. Effective parliamentary engagement can be a catalyst for MDG progress. It can promote broad ownership and accountability for the MDGs. There are different mechanisms that can be used by Parliaments to heighten accountability within the areas of a Parliaments functions, namely legislation, oversight, budget scrutiny, and representation. A Parliament should ensure that enabling legislation and policies to make progress towards the MDG targets are in place. In performance of its oversight role, Parliaments should be able to assess whether targets in their respective countries are on track and who are the responsible entities. To promote broad- based ownership and accountability, it is important that the MDGs are disaggregated and localized down to the lowest level of government. If Parliaments do not take the lead in ensuring oversight of progress towards the MDGs, it is highly unlikely that any other national body will step in to fulfil this vital role. The oversight role of Parliaments allows us to hold accountable government and other stakeholders on the matter of implementing MDG policy.

Because scrutinizing and approving the national budget is the responsibility of national Parliaments, we are also in a position to assess whether financial resources are being utilized to realize MDGs. And as representatives, we can raise issues on behalf of our constituents for the government to design more appropriate and responsive MDG-related policies. In the Philippines, the House of Representatives created a Special Committee on MDGs. The Committee is working on about 24 MDG-related bills, apart from resolutions, which are now at various stages in the legislative mill. These measures are aligned with and categorized according to each Millennium Development Goals. Our country experience with reaching MDGs has been relatively successful. If our country is to improve on this performance, I firmly believe that further parliamentary engagement in these matters is crucial. Im sure all of us here who are deeply committed to the achievement of MDGs have their respective policies and programs, and experiences of successes and challenges, which we can all learn from as we fortify our individual and collective efforts to meet our respective MDGs. We also very much welcome the presence of civil society leaders in this gathering. Civil society has been an effective advocate of various human development causes. They have been instrumental in giving more attention to MDGs and ensuring accountability at the national level. We have about three years left to achieve our targets. While we have our work cut out for us, I believe we shall, in the end, achieve a significant degree of success. Already, this Forum affords us the opportunity to thresh out vital issues, and arrive at proper resolutions. Let us not waste this tremendous opportunity. As parliamentarians, we have much in common, and much more to share with each other. Let us also not forget that we have the great power to effect transformation in our respective countries and in our region. Let us therefore exercise wisdom in the use of that power. My fellow parliamentarians and our civil society partners, thank you very much to all of you for your valuable presence here today. May this Forum advance the further development of our region and our peoples!