VOA标准英语2008年-Aid Campaigners Concerned about Achieving UN Mi

By Tendai Maphosa
London
26 May 2008

In 2000 the United Nations adopted the Millennium¹ Development Goals to be achieved by 2015. One of these is halving² the number of people living in extreme poverty. However, with only seven years left, campaigners are concerned that at the present rate of aid to poor countries, the goal may not be achieved. Tendai Maphosa has more in this report from London.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) recently confirmed that financial assistance to the world's poorest countries fell by 8.4 percent in real terms in 2007. This, the organization says, means aid has fallen for the second year in a row.

In 2005, G8 leaders pledged to double aid and provide an additional $50 billion a year by 2010. But going by the latest figures, aid campaigners say, the donors⁴ will be way off target. Max Lawson, a policy officer at Oxfam, describes the reneging of countries on promises they made to increase aid at the G8 summit at Gleneagles in 2005 as a scandal.

"The French and the Germans in particular are refusing to do that. We worry there is not enough domestic pressure on them," said Lawson. "They are worried about their economies, rich countries are facing the credit crunch⁵ but that's just an excuse; there can be no excuse for the richest nations in the world not delivering on these promises."

Figures however show that the decline in aid figures started in 2006 after rising every year for the past decade. Elvira Groll of Action Aid says the shortfall was revealed after the end of debt relief which she says donor³ countries used to highly inflate⁶ aid figures.

"Although we do consider debt relief to be very important to free resources in developing countries it's not genuine aid which helps the poorest in the countries themselves, it's not money that goes straight to the countries so Action aid has repeatedly called on donor countries to stop counting debt relief as aid and include that in their aid statistics," said Groll.

In addition, Groll says, student costs and refugee relief was also added to the aid figures.

Oxfam's Lawson says the $50 billion the G8 promised in aid could be missed by as much as $30 billion and this could cost lives.

"You can begin to count what that $30 billion could pay for," said Lawson. "The World Health Organization has made clear costings of what it would cost to cut the numbers of children dying; the number of mothers dying in child birth and to get people with HIV access to medicines to keep them alive. We calculate that the missing money could save at least five million lives so there is a direct human cost."

John Clancy, a spokesman for Louis Michel the European Commission's development and Commissioner⁷ agrees that the drop in Official Development Aid from the European Union and other donor countries is due to debt relief coming to an end. A lot of countries, he says, had been able to balance their development aid against debt relief. Clancy however says the announcement of the shortfall could be used positively⁸.

"It offers us all a wake up call with regards to commitments," said Clancy. "These are issues that concern us all and it's very important which is why the European Commission made its call for at least its member states to stick to their commitments and to get back on track because it is reachable but there has to be of course political will."

But Oxfam's Lawson says the goal of halving the people living in extreme poverty globally may be met because of growth in China but there are big doubts in Africa where there are still millions of people living in desperate poverty.

1 millennium   

n.一千年，千禧年；太平盛世

参考例句：

• The whole world was counting down to the new millennium.全世界都在倒计时迎接新千年的到来。
• We waited as the clock ticked away the last few seconds of the old millennium.我们静候着时钟滴答走过千年的最后几秒钟。

2 halving   

n.对分，二等分，减半[航空、航海]等分v.把…分成两半( halve的现在分词 )；把…减半；对分；平摊

参考例句：

• You searched those halving your salary cut your enthusiasm. 你呈现，薪水减半降低了你的任务热情。 来自互联网
• Halving the repeater spacing made it possible to quadruple the bandwidth. 把增音机间隔缩小一半，就能使带宽增加三倍。 来自互联网

3 donor   

n.捐献者；赠送人；(组织、器官等的)供体

参考例句：

• In these cases,the recipient usually takes care of the donor afterwards.在这类情况下，接受捐献者以后通常会照顾捐赠者。
• The Doctor transplanted the donor's heart to Mike's chest cavity.医生将捐赠者的心脏移植进麦克的胸腔。

4 donors   

n.捐赠者( donor的名词复数 )；献血者；捐血者；器官捐献者

参考例句：

• Please email us to be removed from our active list of blood donors. 假如你想把自己的名字从献血联系人名单中删去，请给我们发电子邮件。
• About half this amount comes from individual donors and bequests. 这笔钱大约有一半来自个人捐赠及遗赠。 来自《简明英汉词典》

5 crunch   

n.关键时刻；艰难局面；v.发出碎裂声

参考例句：

• If it comes to the crunch they'll support us.关键时刻他们是会支持我们的。
• People who crunch nuts at the movies can be very annoying.看电影时嘎吱作声地嚼干果的人会使人十分讨厌。

6 inflate   

vt.使膨胀，使骄傲，抬高（物价）

参考例句：

• The buyers bid against each other and often inflate the prices they pay.买主们竞相投标，往往人为地提高价钱。
• Stuart jumped into the sea and inflated the liferaft.斯图尔特跳到海里给救生艇充气。

7 commissioner   

n.（政府厅、局、处等部门）专员，长官，委员

参考例句：

• The commissioner has issued a warrant for her arrest.专员发出了对她的逮捕令。
• He was tapped for police commissioner.他被任命为警务处长。

8 positively   

adv.明确地，断然，坚决地；实在，确实

参考例句：

• She was positively glowing with happiness.她满脸幸福。
• The weather was positively poisonous.这天气着实讨厌。