Millennium Development Goals in EU Accession Countries Press Briefing

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), during a press briefing jointly organized with UNIS in Vienna on 7 April, presented its sub-regional report of the progress being made in achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia and Slovenia. The speakers were Ben Slay, Director of the UNDP Regional Centre in Bratislava, Jana Simonová, Head of the Country Support Team at the UNDP Regional Centre in Bratislava, Jacek Cukrowski, MDG Adviser at the UNDP Regional Centre in Bratislava and Cihan Sultanoglu, Resident Representative of UNDP in Lithuania. The event was opened by Janos Tisovszky, Information Officer, UNIS Vienna, who at the beginning of the briefing announced that the General Assembly of the United Nations declared 7 April 2004 as the International Day of Reflection on the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. A minute of silence was observed during the briefing in memory of the victims of the Rwanda genocide.

In his statement, Mr. Cukrowski named the eight MDGs and provided some background information on how they came into existence after the Millennium Declaration of September 2000, and how the Monterey agreement of 2002 was a confirmation of the commitment to achieve the MDGs. Mr. Cukrowski explained that within the United Nations system, the UNDP was designated to be the score-keeper for monitoring the achievement of the MDGs. Every year, UNDP prepares regional progress reports, and every five years, a global progress report, with the first one expected in 2005.

Mr. Slay then took the floor and explained the connection to the MDGs in Central and Eastern Europe, namely in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia and Slovenia. He said that although MDGs might not seem so important in the four countries about to join the European Union (EU), the MDGs needed to be looked at from a different perspective. Poverty in the region, for example, could not be compared to the poverty in Africa or Asia, but there were special groups that were being segregated within the respective countries either by nationality, gender or geographical sub-region. According to the Report, the Roma people in eastern parts of Slovakia and Hungary were particularly poor, and had to live on less then $ 1 per day. UNDP works together with the national and local governments to develop policies for municipalities to avoid segregation of the Roma people in the region. In general, UNDP helps the local partners build capacity needed towards achieving MDGs; it provides guidance to look for problems typical for the region and underscores the contribution these countries can make to the EU and the rest of the world.

Ms. Simonová explained that in the four countries in question, UNDP had three priorities: the social inclusion of the disadvantaged groups, particularly the Roma; inclusion of sustainable development principles into the national, regional and local policies; and providing assistance to the national governments in building their own development assistance capacities. Ms. Simonová gave examples of several ongoing projects in the four countries. In Hungary, for example, 13 community centres for the Roma have been built, providing legal advice, skills development, marketing of their products, mostly crafts, etc. Another project, a micro-credit programme in the poorest region in Hungary, provides financial support to all marginalized groups to start small and medium enterprises. There are also several sustainable development projects in smaller towns with social, economic and environmental components, as well as renewable energy projects in Slovakia and Slovenia, based on the natural resources in the two countries.

Ms. Sultanoglu provided a brief outline of the work of the UNDP in Lithuania and the importance of the MDGs for the country, in which 40 per cent of the people lived in rural areas. As opposed to the geographical marginalization in Central and Eastern Europe, in Lithuania, the urban versus rural segregation, was the main difference in applying the MDGs.

The briefing was followed by a question-and-answer session. In response to the question regarding whether major UN-sponsored world conferences of the 1990s had a relevance to the MDGs, Mr. Slay said that MDGs were to some extent a continuation or a re-commitment of the international community and he personally saw the MDGs as a kind of a scripture for the United Nations system. Mr. Slay also added that the developing countries were more committed than the developed ones, in other words, the poorer the country, the more interested it was in the MDGs.

Answering the question on the Roma situation in the four countries, Mr. Slay said that a study on the Roma in five countries in the region had been published by UNDP about a year ago. Through interviews with 5,000 Roma people, the study found that the Roma were best off in the Czech Republic, and poorest in Romania and Bulgaria, whereas in Slovakia, they had the highest unemployment rate. The fifth country included in the survey was Hungary. Mr. Slay added that the most interesting outcome of the survey was not the differences but the similarities of the Roma people in the respective countries; they all wanted to be included in the mainstream society, which seems to have been much easier under the Socialist regimes.

To the question of how the EU accession would affect the help that countries received from UNDP, Ms. Sultanoglu replied that, in principle, the moment a country joined the EU, it became a donor country, but it would continue to be eligible for development funds, however small and insignificant they might have become in the future.

Mr. Slay concluded the briefing by saying that the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia and Slovenia were emerging as donor countries, and have been reaching out to countries less fortunate than themselves.

About 20 representatives of media, NGOs and permanent missions attended the briefing. Individual interviews took place after the briefing (AFP, ORF International Radio).

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