Obasanjo, at UNESCO, renews debt pardon plea

Obasanjo, at UNESCO, renews debt pardon plea

16^th October, 2001.

A common front against poverty was yesterday forged by Nigeria and France, when the leaders of both countries agreed that there was an urgent need for the developed world to rise to the challenge of helping the developing countries in their struggle against poverty.

But while President Olusegun Obasanjo advocated debt cancellation, increase in developmental aid and the need to bridge the gap in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) between the developed and developing countries, his French counterpart Jacques Chirac would want any development aid closely monitored when given, to ensure that they do not go into wrong hands.

Both leaders spoke in Paris, France, at the opening ceremony of the 31st session of the United Nations Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), which will last two weeks. It was a unique occasion for President Obasanjo, who yesterday became the first Nigerian leader to address the organisation's general conference since 1960.Dressed in a blue traditional agbada, with a blue cap the president addressed some 3,000 delegates from 180 countries whom he warned of an impending disaster if no effective action was taken to close "the gaping ICT chasm", which he said now separates the industrialised world from most developing countries.

Urging the delegates to seize the opportunity of the first major international event to be well attended since the September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States, Obasanjo told the delegates that the global village would not owe its existence solely to scientific, technological and economic advances, but would only survive "when its development processes incorporate the educational with the cultural, the social with the spiritual, and the religious and ethical with the traditional.

"Reiterating his call for debt cancellation, Obasanjo noted that there was no way any meaningful development could take place in the developing countries with their present debt burden, which he blamed for the high rate of poverty and illiteracy in those regions.His words: "Developing countries feel deserted by the dramatic drop in official development assistance. We call on all our development partners, especially the OECD countries, and the international finance institutions, to join us in providing a critical mass of financial resources. Let us set a moderate scale of 0.5 per cent of the GDP in the next five years. In this regard, it is also pertinent to raise the debt issue. Let me plead once again that African countries should be relieved from their debt burden that impedes national development and the provision of education and other social services."

Although the President acknowledged the recent move regarding debt relief, such as the programme for the highly indebted poor countries, a programme from which Nigeria is not qualified to benefit, he insisted that the programme was not good enough. "What is required," the president told the delegates, "is a total eradication of the burden, so as to give a survival chance to the countries struggling to simultaneously make ends meet, and to pay debt. We must design innovative approaches that can revitalise and sustain our educational systems, such as the debt-for-education swaps."

Shifting to globalisation, the President said that prejudice towards other cultures constituted a major impediment to true globalisation. According to him, there is a need to recognise the position of weak nations, so as not to alienate them and push them to the disadvantaged position. "The way out," he said, "is a democratic dispensation, and a spirit of good governance (which) affords us the opportunity for dialogue, debate and deliberation together, for peaceful solutions rather than bitterness, confrontation and violence."

At the recent Durban conference on racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and other forms of intolerance, my message emphasised the absolute need for all of us to commit ourselves to opposing all forms of discrimination wherever they may occur. Unfortunately, this seminal event was overshadowed by discord an political disputes. We seemed to have lost an opportunity to face the real challenges of changing prejudices, biases and discrimination which formed the bedrock of human inhumanity to man".On the effort of his administration to provide education for all, the president said:

"We have given attention to the content and quality of our education. Given the ethnic diversity in our country, we have been most mindful of the need to use education as a unifying factor, and an element of cohesion in nation building."But President Chirac raised certain fundamental questions. "Has the West given the impression of imposing a dominant, essentially materialistic culture, a culture that the greater part of humanity feels to be aggressive, since all it can do is observe it and rub shoulders with it but cannot gain access to it?" he asked.

He then provided the answer: "The answer to that vital part of our tradition, and we can feel it in our hearts and in our thinking: it is dialogue between cultures. That is the key to peace in an age when the fate of peoples is intermingled as never before".