Trade concerns at the centre of debate: the general assembly addresses the millennium development goals.

Delegates from around the world and especially developing countries stressed the reduction of suffering and poverty and the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) during the 2003 debate in the General Assembly. At the Millennium Summit in 2000 in New York, 189 United Nations Member States pledged to achieve by 2015 the following eight MDGs:

* Eradicate extreme hunger and poverty, by reducing by half the proportion of people suffering from hunger and/or of those living on less than one dollar a day;

*Achieve universal primary education, by ensuring that all boys and girls complete a full course of primary schooling;

*Promote gender equality and empower women, by eliminating gender disparity in all levels of education;

*Reduce child mortality rate by two thirds among children under five;

* Improve maternal health, by reducing by three quarters the maternal mortality ratio;

* Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases, by halting and beginning to reverse their incidence and spread;

*Ensure environmental sustainability, by integrating sustainable development principles into country policies, reversing the loss of environmental resources, reducing by half the proportion of people without access to safe drinking water, and improving the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers by 2020; and

*Develop a global partnership for development, which includes addressing least developed countries' needs by reducing trade barriers and improving debt relief, and increasing official development assistance from developed countries.

Namibia's Minister of Foreign Affairs Hidipo Hamutenya said his Government was fully committed to implementing the Millennium Declaration. His country allocated 23 per cent of its annual budget to education and 15 per cent to health, and had determined that improving the productive competitiveness of its economy was the best way to address poverty. This meant providing knowledge and skills to Namibians, including in information technology, he said.

President Vicente Fox of Mexico pointed out that his country was ahead of its timetable, having achieved one third of the MDGs just two years after their adoption and would probably reach all of them by 2010. Mexico had achieved considerable advances in education, health, poverty reduction and equitable distribution of income.

Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs Baboucarr-Blaise Ismaila Jagne of The Gambia said his country planned to be well ahead of the MDGs for education by 2015, Gross enrollment rates had gone from 44 per cent eight years ago to 90 per cent in 2003, he said, Transition rates from primary to secondary schools had jumped from 12 to 77 per cent, while tertiary level institutions were thriving. A new University of the Gambia had recently opened.

Despite the good news, Minister for Foreign Affairs Kandu Wangchuk of Bhutan pointed out that 33 countries, which account for 26 per cent of world population, were reported to be off the track on more than half of the MDGs. He further noted that of these countries, 23 are in sub-Saharan Africa.

With regard to the last MDG, trade is one of the most effective ways to reduce poverty. Developing countries, at development summits, such as in Monterrey, Mexico in March 2002 and in Doha, Qatar in November 2001, have pointed out the need for industrialized countries to reduce trade barriers, particularly for agricultural products. During this year's general debate, these countries expressed their dissatisfaction with the outcome of the September 2003 World Trade Organization (WTO) Conference in Cancun. Developing countries said that some industrialized countries would not give up certain prohibited trade subsidies and had abandoned the talks.

Nguyen Dzy Nien, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Viet Nam, said protectionist measures "have been imposed to prevent developing countries' products from entering into developed countries' markets". He added that the situation ran counter to WTO agreements and spoke of unfair lawsuits against growers of Viet Nam's catfish, cotton farmers in Burkina Faso and indigenous cultivators of medicinal herbs in Brazil. Echoing the eighth MDG, Mr. Nguyen urged for a restructuring of the world's financial and trade system to make it more "democratic and open, where developing countries could have a better chance".

The greatest obstacle to the development of Lesotho and to reaching the objectives of the MDGs is the scourge of HIV/AIDS, said that country's Prime Minister, Pakalitha B. Mosisili. High levels of morbidity and mortality, especially among the working-age groups, are the leading cause of food insecurity and famine in Southern Africa, he added

Mr. Mosisili pointed out that of the 53 African countries, only 5 had achieved the 7-per-cent growth rate required to meet the MDG, 43 countries registered growth rates below 7 per cent, and 5 showed negative growth rates.

Cuba's Minister of Exterior Relations Felipe Perez Roque said that 1.2 billion people live in extreme poverty and 800 million suffer from hunger. He pointed out the difficulty the developing world faced in reaching the MDG of halving the proportion of people living in extreme poverty and suffering from hunger: official development assistance from industrialized countries totalled $53 billion, while the developed countries made a total payment of $350 billion on interest for external debt.

President Lucio Gutierrez of Ecuador reflected on the consequences of this situation in his own country, asking: "How can we get close to the minimum requirements for education, health, growth and social welfare published in United Nations manuals, if my country Ecuador appropriates over 40 per cent of its national budget to cover the servicing of the foreign debt?"

Kaliopate Tavola, Minister of Foreign Affairs and External Trade of Fiji, said emerging countries like his needed preferential access to markets for their economic survival, Developed countries should think of better trade access as an "affirmative action to reduce that yawning chasm between the rich North and the poverty-stricken South", he said, urging the WTO to take up this task and "salvage the wreckage of Cancun".