The Daily Star (Lebanon)
By Jessy Chahine
BEIRUT: Lebanon has dropped a rank - down to 81st out of 177 - in the latest edition of the UnitedNations Development Program's Human Development Report (HDR). A summary of the 2005 reportwas distributed during a news yesterday at UN House in Downtown Beirut, titled "Aid,Trade and Security in an Unequal World." The summary focused on three pillars of cooperation, each ofwhich is seen by the UN as "in urgent need of human commitment."The first pillar was identified as international development assistance, and the second internationaltrade, which, according to the report, "under the right conditions, can be a powerful catalyst for humandevelopment."The third pillar, security, was chosen for the effects that violent conflicts have on the lives of hundredsof millions of people. "It is a source of systematic violations of human rights and a barrier to progresstoward the Millennium Development Goals," the report read.The UN's under secretary general and former UNDP administrator, Mark Malloch Brown, said, "Thisyear's report makes clear that the single greatest challenge facing the development community is thechallenge of the Millennium Development Goals by the target date of 2015."Malloch Brown noted that the world's heads of state will once more gather at the UN General AssemblySummit later this month, where, among other issues, they will review developments since they signedthe Millennium Declaration in 2000.As in previous years, the report ranked 177 countries around the globe according to an index of humandevelopment. This year marked HDR's 15 anniversary. Its human development index has become aglobal standard.Each year, the report focused on a different development theme and introduced new concepts andapproaches. Much has been achieved since the first HDR was published. According to UN statistics,since 1990, life expectancy in developing countries increased by two years and there were three millionfewer child deaths annually and more than 130 million people have escaped extreme poverty."This year's theme focuses on aid, trade and security in an unequal world," said Dr. Mona Hammam,UNDP resident representative."It demonstrates that these three pillars of international cooperation must be refurbished and pursuedsimultaneously," she added, "the amount and quality of international development assistance mustincrease as it is an investment in human development."The system of world trade, she continued, must provide a fairer policy climate that enables poorpeoples and countries to increase their share in global prosperity.To Hammam, the resolution and prevention of violent conflicts are preconditions for humandevelopment and, conversely, equitable growth and social justice are necessary to promote security.The event's guest of honor and president, Finance Minister Jihad Azour, supported Hammam'sstatement, making it very clear how aid, trade and security were the "threemajor impediments thatprevented any developing country (including Lebanon) from achieving any kind ofpolitical, economical and social improvement."Development and security are closely related and both set the base for democracy," Azour said. "We,the Lebanese people, especially are aware of how interlinked those two components truly are," he said,alluding to his country's fractured security sector, a state of affairs which led to the killing "of a nationaldevelopment symbol, Rafik Hariri.""However," he said, "our Prime Minister Fouad Siniora promised in his ministerial statement that theLebanese government has a clear and concise plan that will pull us out of this dark tunnel."
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