Baroness Chalker: Another leap towards ending global poverty

This week, 70 international parliamentarians gathered in Westminster to discuss the future of global development with experts, academics, NGOs, private sector partners and many of you who are now reading this publication. The International Parliamentary Conference on the Post-2015 Development Agenda, organised by CPA UKwith support from UNDP, was an opportunity for colleagues to engage with international parliamentarians and partners to help build a sustainable and equitable approach to ending poverty and improving the lives of billions across the world.

This conference is one of many examples of a new approach to international development. It involves far more than governments in the battle to achieve the targets in the successor framework to the Millennium Development Goals. My former department, now DfID, can count a plethora of new partners in what is now a truly universal effort. We now involve civil-society in-country, with its local presence and truly inspiring convening power; NGOs, with their field expertise and in-country networks; parliaments, which can hold governments to account to deliver on their international promises and create legislative frameworks to implement them; and private sector organisations. Despite times of worldwide austerity the private sector is combining much-needed investment with socially responsible corporate activity and so contributing both to equitable economic development and their own futures.

The need to take advantage of expertise and funding from all viable sources was underlined in the recommendations of the UN’s High-Level Panel, co-chaired by our Prime Minister, which highlighted five ‘transformative shifts’ in the new approach to development including ‘Forging a new global partnership.’ The responsibility of the governments of donor nations does not end when they sign the cheque. Eradicating extreme poverty by 2030 must be a real and ongoing concern for these countries’ parliaments, businesses and citizens. Improved peace and stability and inclusive economic growth coupled with good governance and democratic participation are important catalysts for trade and investment, giving a practical as well as the moral obligation to concern ourselves with development.

How might this work in practice? A number of examples were featured at last week’s conference, including initiatives undertaken by KPMG and Aviva. However, an illustration from my own experience and one by which I am particularly struck is the G.A.S. Partnership’s midwife training programme in Ghana, which the Chalker Foundation for Africa has supported with a three-year grant. The Partnership is a collaboration between the Ghana Health Service, AfriKids (the child rights NGO) and Southampton University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. To date it has trained over 50 midwives in seven hospitals across the Upper East Region of Ghana.

Therefore, whilst the existing framework, outlined in the Millennium Declaration and defined by the Millennium Development Goals, has been criticised for a number of shortfalls and is some way from realisation, it was without doubt a radical and ambitious approach to tackling poverty on a global scale. We now have the opportunity – even the responsibility – to take heart from its successes, learn from its weaknesses and make another, equally ambitious leap towards ending poverty.

This article also appears in the most recent edition of the House Magazine