世界需要新型全球发展伙伴关系

                              洪平凡（2013-09-30）

联合国最近的一份报告指出，全球发展伙伴关系近年来出现倒退迹象，主要表现在不少发达国家未能如期实现他们为促进“千年发展目标”而承诺的国际义务。目前离“千年发展目标”的截止日期2015年只有两年，迫切需要所有利益攸关方实现他们的承诺。但更重要的问题是，2015年之后，世界需要一个什么样的新型全球发展伙伴关系来支持可持续发展。

目前的全球发展伙伴关系模式起源于1969年“皮尔逊”国际发展委员会向世界银行提交的一份报告。该报告提出，发达国家，或称为捐助国，应该每年将他们0.7％的国民收入总值作为官方发展援助（ ODA ），用于帮助发展中国家。官方发展援助基于两条理念。其一是道德理念：幸运者有责任帮助贫穷者；其二是广义自我利益理念：在高度关联的世界经济中，发展中国家经济水平的提高也会反过来促进发达国家的福利。

这种全球发展伙伴关系包括几个关键要素：发达国家承诺向发展中国家提供转移支付（官援），提供技术援助，并给予发展中国家贸易优惠，但这些援助通常伴随着捐助国向受援国提出的政策建议。很多时候这些政策反映在国际金融机构与受援国签署的附加条件协议中，包括一些宏观经济政策，结构调整和体制改革，如要求发展中国家开放贸易市场。

在本世纪初，联合国推出了八项“千年发展目标”，其中，将全球发展伙伴关系本身作为第8个目标，以此来推动其他七个目标。这一目标又具体确定了16个定量指标，涵盖五个领域：官方发展援助资金，发展中国家准入发达国家贸易市场，发展中国家债务可持续性， 发展中国家获得基本医药的程度，发展国家采用新技术的进展。

在过去十年中，这些领域的确取得了一些可喜的进展。官方发展援助资金总额增加了约50 ％；发展中国家出口到发达国家的商品中关税豁免和配额豁免的比率上升；大多数发展中国家的外债已经降低到更可持续的水平；在各国政府和国际制药公司的努力合作下，发展中国家获取基本药物的程度有所提高；发展中国家加快了采用信息和通信技术的步伐。

全球发展伙伴关系的进展也推动“千年发展目标”的进展：全球极端贫困人口比率减少一半，更多的人获得安全用水，更多女孩子能够上学，儿童和孕产妇死亡率下降。

然而，整体来看，在许多领域离“千年发展目标”还有很大差距。值得关注是，全球发展伙伴关系的势头最近明显减弱，在某些方面甚至倒退。

例如，发达国家的官方发展援助资金连续在2011年和2012年下跌， 其中，多边官方发展援助额下降7％ 。用于促进贸易的援助额，即由世界贸易组织（WTO ）在2005年通过的一项重要举措以提高最不发达国家的出口产能，下跌了14 ％ 。发达国家官方发展援助资金总额占其国民收入的比率仅为0.29%，与承诺的0.7%的目标相距甚远。

与此同时，多哈回合贸易谈判，或所谓的“发展回合”，启动十二年之后陷入僵局。

最近两年官方发展援助资金的逆转和全球发展伙伴关系其它一些方面的减弱可能主要是受到全球金融危机的影响，特别是因为许多发达国家面临巨额预算赤字，采取了财政紧缩措施。但是少数发达国家在实施财政紧缩措施的同时仍然设法增加其官方发展援助。这表明，加强政治责任性可以在很大程度上克服了金融危机给全球发展伙伴关系带来的不利影响。

随着越来越多发达国家从“大衰退”中复苏，期望官方发展援助资金也能在今后两年上升，为加速“千年发展目标”做出更大的贡献。

更重要的是，国际社会需要及时考虑2015年之后的全球发展伙伴关系。

联合国的会员国们正在积极规划2015年之后的全球发展议程。目前的共识认为2015年之后的全球发展议程应该以可持续发展为核心，以彻底根除贫困为优先。这样雄心勃勃的议程将需要一个比现行的“千年发展目标”更强大的全球发展伙伴关系。

2015年之后的全球发展伙伴关系仍将继续建立在已有的一些国际公认原则基础之上，如公平，社会正义，共同但有区别的责任。 但它也必须考虑到在全球在地缘经济和地缘政治方面发生的重大变化，包括新型经济体的崛起，以及人类所面临的更为艰巨和复杂的挑战，如气候变化，人口压力，环境和资源压力。

新型全球发展伙伴关系将包括广泛的参与者，不仅包括各国政府，而且还将包括民间团体和志愿者，地方当局，议会，国际组织，企业，慈善基金会，研究机构和学术界。

虽然官方发展援助资金在新型全球发展伙伴关系中仍将继续扮演重要角色，特别是对最不发达国家提供外部融资，但是，为了能够保护全球公共利益，如地球生态系统，确保全球可持续发展，世界需要更广泛、更稳定的，从“义务”向“责任”转变的，类似各国国内税收形式为基础的全球资金框架。此外，发达国家和发展中国家之间传统的捐助国与受援国双边关系将逐步被一个真正的全球经济治理多边框架所取代。

             Renew global partnership for development                     

                                      Pingfan Hong

Global partnership for development has lately shown signs of fatigue, warned recently by a UN report, which monitors gaps in the delivery of international commitments to promoting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). With only two years left before the 2015 target date of the MDGs, all stakeholders need urgently to deliver on what they have promised. But, more importantly, the time has also come to renew the global partnership for the sustainable development of the world beyond 2015.         

The current model of the global partnership for development can find its origin from the 1969 report of the Pearson Commission on International Development, which proposed, inter alia, that developed countries, or the donors, should provide 0.7 per cent of their gross national product as official development assistance (ODA) to developing countries.  The notion of ODA is based on not only a moral precept that those who are fortunate have the duty to help those who need, but also an enlightened self-interest that in a highly interconnected world, an improved standard of living in developing economies would also benefit the welfare of developed countries.

This model of global partnership consists of a few key elements: developed countries making financial transfers, providing technical assistance, and granting trade preferences to developing countries, usually also accompanied by donors’ policy advice for recipient countries, and sometimes coordinated by the international agencies through “conditionality” agreements.

At the turn of the new millennium, when the UN launched the eight MDGs, the global partnership for development was incorporated in the framework as Goal 8, which was considered a crucial enabler to promote progress in the other seven Goals.  More specifically, Goal 8 was delineated by six targets and 16 numerical indictors to cover five particular areas: ODA flows, developing countries’ access to markets of international trade, debt sustainability in developing countries, availability and affordability of medicine in developing countries, and developing countries access to new technology.

Significant progress has since indeed made in these areas. Total amount of ODA flows has increased by about 50 per cent over the past decade, the proportion of developing countries’ exports entering developed countries duty free and quota free has markedly increased, foreign debt in a majority number of developing countries has lowered to more sustainable levels, growing efforts has been made in the cooperation among national governments and pharmaceutical companies to improve access to essential medicine for people living in developing countries, and developing countries’ access to new information and communication technology has expanded at rapid pace.           

The progress in the global partnership has also in turn propelled broad achievements of the MDGs, as manifested in such indicators as the reduction of global extreme poverty in half, more people accessing to safe water, more girls in school, and decline in child and maternal mortality.

However, the overall picture does not warrant any complacency, as gaps and shortfalls remain in many areas of the MDGs. More alarmingly, the momentum in the global partnership has most recently been tapering off, or even backtracking.    

For example, reversing the early achievement in the past decade, ODA flows fell consecutively in 2011 and 2012, with multilateral ODA suffering the greatest decline of 7 per cent. Aid for Trade, an important initiative adopted in 2005 by the World Trade Organization (WTO) to support the least developed countries to build their trade-related capacity, dropped 14 per cent in 2011, with Africa being affected the most. Meanwhile, the Doha Round of the WTO multilateral trade negotiations, or the so-called development round, remains in an impasse after twelve years since its inception.

The recent decreases in ODA flows and reversals in other measures of the global partnership may have mainly been caused by the aftermath of the global financial crisis, particularly as many developed countries area faced with large budget deficit and adopted fiscal austerity measures. However, as exemplified by a small number of developed countries that managed to increase their ODA when they adopted sizeable fiscal austerity measures domestically, a resolved political commitment can to a large extent overcome the adverse impact of the financial crisis on the global partnership. 

As more donor countries are recovering from the Great Recession, the prospects for ODA and other components of the global partnership are hopefully expected to revive, to make a greater impetus to the acceleration of progress in the finale of the MDGs.      

More importantly, the time has come for the international community to renew the global partnership beyond 2015. 

The Member States of the UN have in effect already set in motion a broad participatory process to advance a post-2015 global development agenda, with sustainable development at its core and eradication of extremely poverty on its top priority. Such an ambitious agenda will need an ever stronger global partnership than the existing one for the MDGs. 

A renewed partnership for post-2015 will continue to be anchored on a broad range of internationally agreed principles, such as equity, social justice, solidarity, and common but differentiated responsibility, but it also has to take into account the significant changes in the global geo-economic and geo-political landscape in the past decade, as well as the daunting and complex challenges facing mankind in the long run, such as global climate change.   

The new partnership will consist of a broad spectrum of stakeholders, including not only national governments, but also civil society and volunteers, local authorities, parliaments, international organizations, businesses, philanthropic foundations, research institutes and academia.

While ODA flows will continue to play an important role in the new partnership, particularly in providing external financing for the least developed countries, a much broader, more stable, obligated rather than voluntary, and similar to domestic tax-based, global financing framework is needed to meet the challenges of protecting the global commons, such as the planet’s ecosystem, and ensuring the sustainable development for all. Moreover, the conventional bilateral donor-recipient relationship between developed and developing countries should be gradually replaced by a true multilateral framework of global economic governance.