India : Follow-up action needed on all UN summits, conferences

With the global economic crisis hampering the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), follow-up action is needed on all UN summits and conferences, India said here Wednesday. The statement came as Viplove Thakur, member of the Indian Parliament, addressed the UN General Assembly on the implementation of and follow-up to the outcomes of the major United Nations conferences and summits. "The global economic crisis has not borne well for the MDGs," Thakur said. The MDGs are a set of eight anti-poverty targets to be reached by 2015. "Reverses on poverty alleviation and other development goals need accelerated action to neutralize the regression," she said. The Least Developed Countries (LDCs) which are the biggest " laggards" on the MDGs need stepped up external support, she said. With just four years to go for the MDG target year, follow-up action on all UN summits and conferences need to be pushed, Thakur said. "The global economic uncertainties should not become an excuse for inaction on our development agenda, more so when the economic recovery itself would get a boost from addressing the development deficit." The follow-up on the Monterrey Consensus and the Doha Review Conference on financing for development is "fundamental" to ensuring resources and required policy space for developing countries to meet their socio-economic challenges, he said. With the 2012 UN Conference on sustainable development, Thakur called on the international community to "bring back the sustainable development agenda to the center stage." "Over the years, the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) has played an important role in advancing a holistic and coordinated approach to global economic and social development taking into account the inter-relatedness of the different goals and targets of major UN conferences," Thakur said.